A strong wind from the south
From Swallowing the Soap: New and Selected Poems by William Kloefkorn Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010.
A strong wind from the south
blows through the orchard,
and suddenly the world is apricot:
apricot in a downpour on the ground,
at the ears, apricot,
at the nose, apricot,
the air as far as the eye can see
a shimmer, a haze, of apricot,
apricot in bushel baskets on the porch,
the tart steam of apricot
rising from kettles in the kitchen,
apricot jelling within the gloss
of scaled jars,
each shelf in the cave, the pantry,
swaybacked beneath an orange heft of apricot,
and in bed Anna’s face
like a harvest moon
between the pillow
and the cool white sheet
now rising.
The tip of her tongue
ever so unbegrudgingly
against the tip of mine.
Reproduced from Swallowing the Soap: New and Selected Poems by William Kloefkorn, edited and with an introduction by Ted Genoways, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 2010 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska.