ELIZABETH REES
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TUNED IN
Stooped over all afternoon mending—me, a doctor of flowers!—bending between shadows, across beams of a loom, I stretch strings, sweep dust from the sun. A spine straightener, I fix flowers, scratch the cat’s back. I have a boyfriend on the sea who spins love songs to landlocked truckers driving flowers from Zohar to Haifa, and to me. He likes to sit on the hatch and watch stars drop over the western deck, but tonight, surrounded by clouds, star on either ear, he will air his show from The Voice of Peace. Radio on high, I melt into my flowers, leaving a path of purple ducks and chickens down the rows, smells of Sabbath hanging from the Clementina tree. I sweep through underbrush and seaweed, evening in three stars on these branches, a full moon filling the ark of his boat.
I work in a field, he on the sea, we seam together, each step up an iron spine sharing airwaves, sea miles apart, unraveling strings, seasick again. Song by song, we send each other dreams: if people were prayers, we wouldn’t need poets.
Santa Fe Literary Review
33
