The Ofi Press Magazine

Poems by Melisa Malvin-Middleton (USA)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 49

Wild Mustard (Hirschfeldia incana)

Tang and heat

behind my teeth.

You were wild,

spice pestled into bowl

woven of yucca thread

that knits a memory-hope:

    my father in bucket hat,

    elevating me

    onto sun-warmed boulders

    where lizards perch and king snakes coil.

    I could live off the land—

    by roadsides and sandy fields,

    along trails that wind,

    brush that hides the lioness.

    But the aureolin fuel

    convalesces with costal sage,

    two conspirators explode

    like the molten sky, citrine,

    and vanish into grey Pacific.

Hand-pulled by my father,

I was assured

you weren’t poison.

I learned by example,

tasting the weed I thought was gold.

The hum

of helicopter blades

gives rise to a police parade.

Spotlight on starlit

home in hills, it rides

curves of Mulholland,

traces a widow’s peak

down steep slopes,

trampling tundra

over hawk canopy

of gopher hammocks,

or rattlesnake abode

near coyote lair.

Circle.

Circle.

Diaphanous haze meets

mote-float tango.

Tracing vortex tips,

through rotor slice cacophony.

Hover the bones

made ill by Santa Anas.

Wrestles the night

like a migraine coma.

Perp or perv screwed

courage to the sticking place

under barbs and thorns,

safe in crawlspace

by screened talisman

warding off pendulum divination

of angel light and demon noise