The Adriatic Fig

35 hours later, a poem emerged.

More often than not, I subscribe to Ginsberg’s belief that “the first thought is the best thought,” and that the act of creating poetry — the release itself — is the art form. Others vehemently argue that, as a writer, you are inside the poem, and your task is to help readers who remain outside find their way indoors. Perhaps brew them a coffee, a Negroni, or offer a warm blanket to make them feel at home.

Last week, during a conversation with the wonderful Phil Bevis (Chatwin Books, Asterism, Arundel Bookstore), we discussed D. H. Lawrence’s The Ship of Death and how he wrote the poem again, and again. Phil’s favorite was the sixth version.

Unintentionally, I set out on a journey inspired by that poem. It became a poem I worked on for over a week, spending nearly five hours a day on a single piece — something I rarely do.

The challenge, of course, is that there is immense satisfaction, joy, and relief in finally completing a poem. Yet the writer, being inside the poem, has no real way of knowing whether it lands with readers outside. Rather like the dying wasp caught inside the fig.

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The Adriatic Fig

I.

Late spring, and the cherry blossom tears open the sky.

The wasp surrenders her defiance — dying to pollinate the fig.

Children’s footsteps burbling, gurgling, small hands out of reach.

A swirling murmuration swallows blue air swallows —

a pier.

II.

Midsummer, and the dress, and the beating sun, and the sheets,

and Ostuni, the white city, ploughing the sea.

You bit the tomb — bled scarlet, staining your gown. Cursing

stickiness, entwined, not knowing what we’d swallowed —

or begun.

III.

Autumn fermented on our drunken breath,

and with it, you carried secrets in rows of rose flesh.

Digging crimson tunnels through mausoleum seams,

in movement, in silence, the opening concealed —

a warm seed.

IV.

Pale Winter. Bare-knuckled branches. Fallen fruit.

Rotten remnants, pungent, feeding the ground.

Cocooned inside this intimate chamber, blind and wingless,

my lover, ferrying toward the light, and I waited —

with the others.

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