Linda France
The Lady’s Mantle Letter
She will write him a letter to tell him
how cool and wet her garden is this July,
how beautiful the alchemilla is,
a strange citrus, petal-less froth above
the green nearly-circles of the fanned leaves.
They are the shape of its other name –
Lady’s Mantle – an outspread cloak, pleats
stitched with pearls of dew, scallop-edged;
designed for wrapping and unwrapping,
a honey-scented aphrodisiac.
Alchemilla is after alchemy –
the magic water it breathes through its leaves
part of the ancient recipe for melting
metals into gold. She will tell him
what waiting is and what it isn’t.
She will write him a letter to tell him
these things because she’s feeling inside out
and he’s not there to unwrap her, wrap her
in his pashmina arms; and because
it’s him she’s thinking about when, by chance,
she places three stems of purple crane’s bill
in the same vase and catches the shock
of both flowers growing more alive,
their colours spilling into something new.
She will tell him how soft the rain is.
Page(s) 19
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