Carol Durak

You May Mock Me

Hold close to your face the pomegranate.
No different: an apple or the scarlet impatiens.

To go into red through a door’s way, to hold
in your mind the fruit, to go in, to defy, to wade

through sediment, through seed vessel, seed-pearl—
for one this is conflict, for another, solemnity—

determinant segments might join. A story may qualify.
Once upon a time, determinant segments did join.

Touch / Tuck / Touch / Memory / Tuck / a milk
and honey disruption. When you rise / let red

be the color / of your true mind’s love / in the morning
when you rise, that’s / the time / that is /

the time…Irresolution of the spring red flower full
bloom: rose bushes, thorn-wise, close to the sea,

hot scent of the thorn-stemmed roses; anti-taboo
and close to the sea; crossing through corpse,

through similarities and differences / touch /
tuck / all we deny we detain in our humanness.

Originally from Michigan, Carol Durak Iived in Maine for many years, where, in addition to writing, she made a living in book conservation, restoration, and fine binding. Leaving the East Coast in 2019, she now lives in northern New Mexico. Her poems have appeared in The Laurel Review, MOIRA, New Letters, and Permafrost. Her chapbook, Hymn Postponement, was published in the book, Three Chapbooks / Three Poets, by Flowstone Press, 2024.