Poetry: Rebecca Kaiser Gibson

OBSERVATIONS

A papaya sprig needs
only two years time                and then will grow.

So daily she will sweep away the locust leaf debris
with a stiff broom of palmleaf spine
sidewinding lightly on the earth.

And see, the chalking in of morning prayer,
the flower garland doorway to the day,
and this hibiscus splayed inside her early market bag,
to offer up as it had fluttered down.

Each in its wheel of wet manure,
hosed by one in yellow sun,
her left hand draped back
balancing the universal scale.

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REBECCA KAISER GIBSON has had work published in AGNI, The Antigonish Review, The Boston Phoenix, Field, The Greensboro Review, The Harvard Review, Margie, The Northwest Review, Pleiades, Salamander and Slate, among others.  She teaches poetry at Tufts University.