DO GENTRY
The Scryer's Art
Like certain fruit
– apple – for instance – pear –
mirrors spoil from the inside
out.
One moment: glowing
like a gemstone dipped in honey –
the next: chill as moonlight
reflected on black ice.
Gazed into by candlelight,
or over a lover’s unlucky shoulder –
chanced upon in a room
illumined by three lamps –
Filling the air with a scent
of bruised peaches and winter lemons –
those mornings you awakened
longing for imperatives
sweet as a lover’s demands.
Or like persimmons that ripen,
then darken – suddenly –
above the glazed blue flame of the bowl.
Do Gentry lives in Sacramento, California. Her poems have been published in
Sulphur River
Literary Review, Ekphrasis, Fourteen Hills, Rhino, Spoon River Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook,
The
Nightmare Parable, was the winner of the 2004 Permafrost competition. She has just completed a series of poems
based on the life of 18th century salonniére Julie de Lespinasse.(
Bichette3@aol.com)