Danusha Laméris

Evening Poetry, October 23

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Still Life, Apples and Chestnuts by Los Angeles County Museum of Art is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

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Apples by Danusha Laméris

One, tossed to Aphrodite,
begins a war. Eve, that fateful bite
into the crisp white skin. 
Distracted by the sight of golden apples
a virgin huntress loses a race
and must marry. Each apple
a kind of failure. The body
calling our desire. Isn't there
always something we want
more than our own happiness?
A pull toward the Fall.
Haven't we all loved too much?
Snow White bit into the flesh
laced with poison.
Love is something we fall into.
Fall, the time of ripening apples.
In England one falls pregnant.
Life requires collapse
holds it out to us
sweet and fragrant.

You can find this poem in The Moons of August.

Evening Poetry, October 14

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What Trees Dream Of by Danusha Laméris

This one thinks, let me be the slender bow
of the violin. Another, the body of the instrument,
burnished, the color of amber.
One imagines life as a narrow boat
crossing water,
a light mist of salt on the prow.
And still another &emdash; planed down to planks,
then hammered into shelter
toices vibrating through the rafters.
We do not notice their pleasure,
the slight hum of the banister
beneath our palms,
The satisfaction of the desk
as we tap our pens, impatiently,
upon its weathered surface.
They have ferried us
across rough seas
to lands that smelled of cinnamon
housed our senators,
who pace the creaky floors, debating,
carried arrowheads to pierce our enemies.
We have boiled their pulp, pressed it
into thin, white sheets of paper
on which we describe all of the above in great detail.
And when we die
they hold our empty forms
in bare cedar
until the moment &emdash; and how they long for this,
when we meet again in the blackened soil
and they take us back
in their embrace, carry us
up the length of their bodies
into the glittery, trembling movement of the leaves.

You can find this poem in The Moons of August.