by Jacquelyn Markham

Japanese plums, loquats, saffron clusters
pasted on palmish evergreen leaves
in breezes swinging.
Another spring blooms.
Let’s gather them & slice the fruit.
Each one a center of smooth seed,
a sculptor could carve a tiny face from.

Loquat in saffron clusters.
Let’s gather them & slice the fruit,
concoct a yellow cocktail with ice
stirred in. Laugh & toast
to love like days past.
Another spring blooms.
Fruit once fragrant blossoms.
Now, the loquats bunch in saffron
clusters. We laugh & drink the fruit,
cheers to days past with a tangy taste of sun.

Jacquelyn Markham, author of three chapbooks, including Rainbow Warrior (2023) and a personal mythology, Peering Into the Iris: An Ancestral Journey, has published in journals and anthologies, such as Archive: South Carolina Poetry Since 2005, Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology, Fall Lines, Woman and Earth, High Window Review, & others. Markham’s awards include three Georgia Council for the Arts grants, a Kentucky Women’s Foundation Award, and a SC Arts Grant. A former professor, she earned an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing from Florida State University and in 2014 received the Adele Mellen Prize for distinguished scholarship for her research on the poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Markham lives and writes in Beaufort where she mentors poets and writers.