Prick of the Spindle: Poetry: Slaviero: Virgin's Weeds

Virgin’s Weeds
By Susan Slaviero

It’s been said that a sugar cube can
pollute a clutch of rabbits, their
hunger waxing until they’ll eat
anything from an ear of corn to a

spike of cactus. I water cattails
with a silver creampot, just a
barefoot nun with an iron
spade and a palmful of blueberries.

Thunder boils the graybowl
sky, storms pitching dustwebs
from the undersides of bay
laurels. There are no petals

in convent gardens, only smothering
vines of peppers, plum baby
tomatoes, crabapples for
jelly. In this place, there are two

possibilities: pluck or bury.

Susan Slaviero has a BA in Creative/Professional Writing from Lewis University, and is the poetry editor of the online journal, blossombones. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Fourteen Hills, Prairie Margins, North Central Review, and Windows. Susan's chapbook, Apocrypha, is forthcoming from dancing girl press in January of 2009.