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Poetry | February 2008

Quickening

By Laura Van Prooyen

The tangle of thin arms takes over
my garden, swollen with tomatoes.
JalapeƱos descend, remnants
of flower cling to skin. In winter

I never imagine fertility
like this: a splintering fence
laced with leaves and droplets
of mottled gourds. I doubt

this bounty needs me to exist.
See the maple’s canopy, long
removed from its planter’s hand? There,
winged seeds hang poised for release:
a spiral of fluttering; and then
I feel the stirring, the first
movement, but it is not mine.

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