Stamen I (2002)
Charlie Murphy

Stamen I 2002

after Charlie Murphy’s Retort 2013

Brittle bodies growing under glass
like some abandoned experiment,
infinitely fragile,

as if someone held the inside of a woman,
a soul, and blew into it,
drew it into these frozen tubes, these tentacles

to catch whatever the wind might carry
in the way of blood,
of something sexual

the touch of pollen, passion,
preserved like a ruby drop
inside the flowering glass.

© Rosie Jackson March 2013