Cynthia Elder
 
Calling My Name From Flowerbeds
 
I drive down to Jones’ Circle now,
where I don’t belong,
where wild roses persist
along the fringes of the lot.
 
I reach through thorns,
through brown-edged leaves,
through blossoms, parched and shriveling.
 
I twist and break the stem of one
which bloomed today, I pull it free
from tangled wires, broken fence posts,
listen, listening, listening –
a hungry Nayatt School girl –
for the sound of petals falling.

Cynthia Elder lives on the edge of Hundred Acre Cove in Barrington, Rhode Island, with her husband and our increasingly empty nest. Her poems have appeared in The Allegheny Review, Dog River Review, Plainswoman, and elsewhere, and she has work forthcoming in Eudaimonia Press Mental Health Anthology.  She has worked in nonprofits for 25 years in the areas of mental health, education and the environment.