Jehanne Dubrow

The Pressed Flower

                        On her own wedding day the Shulamite woman met her later self, Shulamith,

promised bride of Shoah.  What language did they speak?—two lovelies, who

held each other’s hands, exchanging gifts.  Bundles of myrrh.  A grave in the air.          

 

The children used to choose  

a flower, placing a rose          

within a stack of books,         

until sleek petals broke                       

or flattened like a page,                     

the blossom mashed and aged                       

by words, two covers lined    

with pollen gilt. 

   You’ll find              

me there, smoothed among                

Celan and Song of Songs. 

I’m blue forget-me-not,                     

the genital violet,                   

belled lily of the valley.                     

I’m text and ovary.    

 

 

Shulamith, on Honeymoon

 

In West Virginia,

we cut pink clusters of wisteria

 

then placed them in a waterglass beside our bed,

where day by day, they bled,

 

fading from fuschia’s bite

to salmon pink to shell, a last embarrassed pink (near-white

 

but still remembering red),

so like the secret places on our skin, you said

 

from in between my legs—my body opening for yours,

at last, a blossoming (of course

 

a bud that opens on its own

still wants another’s touch), we two alone,

 

a flower twisting on its stem, a flower bent

beneath the weight of dew—no shame in scent,

 

in rain, the aftertaste

of petals in our mouths, my chaste

 

but unchaste hands feeling the pulse beneath your collarbone,

we two alone

 

and always tangled in that room,

the bed, the glass, the pink (oh pink) wisteria in bloom.

 

Shulamith Writes Fuck You

 

fuck you          you chimney stack

you living body made to choke

on prussian blue          blue face burned black

you rigor mortis turned to smoke                               

fuck you          you topos bent to make

a rhymed barbarity      go fuck

yourself           you charcoal comic book

you linearity                            train track

which travels south while time runs back

to nil    fuck you         you stains of ink                     

across the page                        you stack

of bleeding languages that stink

you gangrene words    fuck you black milk

fuck you          and all the worlds you broke

 

 

Jehanne Dubrow  was born in Vicenza, Italy and grew up in Yugoslavia, Zaire, Poland, Belgium, Austria, and the United States. She is currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, Tikkun, The New England Review, and Poetry Northwest.