Read an Excerpt
Mother in Summer
By Susan Hahn Northwestern University Press
Copyright © 2002 Susan Hahn
All right reserved. ISBN: 0810151308
Mother in Summer I Here, the Hardy Gladioli with their delicate
butterfly florets surround her
as do the Blue Ribbon Dutch Iris bulbs
that live and multiply for years,
their cuttings lasting so long in the vase--
just like
forever becomes her face.
She borders my life,
dependable as the garden
lilies. I listen to the trumpets
of their sweet yellow throats--the music
of their silent voice.
We are in the heat of deep summer
and she sits so young and quiet
in the painted pastel
lawn chair, while Green Magic
hybrids with their pure white petals
assert themselves against the shade.
Their perfection protects us,
while I poke
my small fingers through
the cutout design in the steel seat
I've crawled under to touch her.
My back is to the ground.
She jumps. We laugh.
We are not yet old:
Golden Splendor, Rose Fire, Sterling Star,
Enchantment, cluster near us
in this extravagance of color.
She wears a crimson chemise
and her hair flames
equal to the sun.
I wrinkle my pink pinafore
as I lie in the fleshy
grass, turn over, tickle my face
against the weeds. We are surreal
in this light. We are surreal
with all this bright.
Fever The inside of the lily isn't calm,
the sun has singed its center.
I touch its tender knobs
which lie exposed under
the eye of raging fire.
No breeze or balm revives
its once trumpet form.
Its muscled walls
are still thick, but disease
afflicts the flower.
In the mirror I see the result--
its swell and fall out of itself.
Malignancy in Late May The ground is too lush, too tumorous,
the tulips too anxious in their push
to lick the sill--violent
purples, new bruises, swell against
the already cracked and fragile
glass. Will it break
apart--that self that contains the wild
cell? Soon the full-blown flowered
lump will appear in the crevice
of your neck. I'll watch you watch
the doctor finger the florid node.
How he'll cut into the story, tell you the rest
of your life. You'll put the petit
point down. Perhaps forever, never
finishing the picture.
I want it.How I love the benign tea rose
you've drawn onto the fabric.
It is so safe, unlike what's going
on with the large-tongued
petals that bend every which way
with the wind--wag and over-
heat in the metastasized grass.
Continues...
Excerpted from Mother in Summer by Susan Hahn Copyright © 2002 by Susan Hahn. Excerpted by permission.
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