K E L LY R . S A M U E L S
For Fire Moss (C. purpureus) I could lie down in a bed of you, that natural state, or so I’m told. So some have done. Though the damp will seep in to the places I’ve been worn away, so be it. That damp of the shaded side of the line of pines, or the stone wall—stones from the bluff, blasted and reset—is what comes with you. Too: this green of the velvet-topped stool my grandmother had, the one we could never sit on or stand on, only stroke for a short time. This before it was placed in the sun coming through the picture window and then misplaced and we stood around the day of the auction, asking Wasn’t it? Where could it? And no one answered. That green. Nestled among the boulders, sometimes with your stalks, patiently waiting for wind to do its work. Why keep to the stairwell, from the light streaming from the large room below where the music plays? They ask. Why so quiet? Why so seemingly still? Not the tread. Not the heavy or even delicate step. Not anything resembling clamor or glare.
10
C A R O L I N A Q U A R T E R LY
