Poetry by Charlie Zender

1

Being, Mustard, Girl
for Olivia Coakley Zender from Her Daddy
Swaying yellow-fingered stands of flowers Drape the hillsides of our backyard We venture across wide streets, narrow paths, deep pits, Into the weedy bouquet of mustard This floral forest thrice your height Emanates thick incenses of pollen and saprophytes We ramble through our hill's green exhalations You tunnel the grasping briars delicately, I trample them Breathing Spring's hazy effluent, we emerge panting The meadow primordially painted with baby's breath and lavender Unsaddling my shoulders, you set off to Wonderland A shaggy girl in bloom crowned with golden mustard hair Boots like mine murder glorious yet nameless rain-forest species Into silent extinction everyday. How carelessly we pile atop weeds. Assuming their distant ignorant relatives will not apprehend us As we nap, quietly crushing everything beneath us with love

Irvine, California April 6­24, 2003