Poem of the Week

Plum Madrigal

Lisa Russ Spaar

We keep our distance, a kind of prayer,
walking through contagious air,

older father & old daughter,
roaming his church, the little orchard,

apricot already blown to leaf, apple
mere pulses, the peach still braille

on yet-dead limbs. I love most
the plum, fruit whose stone would close

my throat. Scabrous trunk, bent
as a crone but bridal in ascent.

Without protection is what anaphylactic
means. I plunge my face toward scent’s lunatic

shock. In it: olives, sea salt, a crescent moon:
a contact high, a cyanidic swoon.

Lisa Russ Spaar is the author/editor of twelve books of poetry, including More Truly and More Strange: 100 Contemporary American Self-Portrait Poems and Madrigalia: New & Selected Poems. She is a professor at the University of Virginia.
Originally published:
November 10, 2021

Featured

Cancel Culture and Other Myths

Anti-fandom as heartbreak
Kathryn Lofton

Ode to Babel

The ecstasy of Michael K. Williams
Roger Reeves

A Moral Education

In praise of filth
Garth Greenwell

You Might Also Like

Poem of the Week

Children of Lions

Eugenia Leigh

Poem of the Week

Pale Evening Dun

Rob Schlegel

Poem of the Week

Teletherapy

Brian Tierney

Newsletter

Sign up for The Yale Review newsletter and keep up with news, events, and more.