Poetry Magazine
Appleblossom
Clamber out of the morning river with water beads like fish eggs clung
to your pubis the calluses on your buttocks from sitting, writing
on flat rocks, your goose-pimpled thighs—the bumpy tongues of two dogs licking
each other—and river-slather and slather at the edge of my mouth.
You are smiling, straining out your hair, flicking your hands, and then
see me watching you with the cloth and pots I was taking to wash.
Before I have time to be embarrassed, the smile lifts into your eyes.
Each “Appleblossom” is a verse translation from the Japanese of a short selection from the notebooks of Chiri, Bashō’s traveling companion during the years between Withered Chestnuts and Travelogue of Weatherbeaten Bones.
Source: Poetry (October 2008).
Biography
Eric Ekstrand is an MFA candidate at the University of Houston where he holds an Inprint/Brown Foundation Fellowship and teaches writing. He is a poetry editor at Gulf Coast.
Poems by Eric Ekstrand
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Nature, The Body
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