BITTERSWEET HONEYSUCKLE
I confuse
their names
when I inform my husband
I spotted the vine
cavorting in the garage’s shadow
again
my check-writing hand
still smarting from the $600 paid
to two men with families
far far to the south
who
from noon to dusk
unwrapped
from the vine’s stranglehold
forsythia lilac lily
hydrangea which had once bloomed
blue as sky after a weekful of rain
their brown arms uncovering
a nest of white-faced hornets
hidden in the dense tangle—
the vine’s only survivors.
It is a bitter thing
to rip out such sweetness by the root
a vine so exuberant and cheerful
its clouds of flowers drip
only innocence and scent.
Claire Zoghb’s collections include Small House Breathing and the chapbooks Boundaries and Dispatches from Everest. Winner of Dogwood’s annual competition and the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival, her work has been nominated for Best of the Net. Her poems have appeared in Comstock Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Crab Creek Review, Sukoon, One, Mezzo Cammin, CALYX, Mizna, and Natural Bridge, and anthologies including Through A Child’s Eyes: Poems and Stories About War and Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems. When not working as a graphic designer, Claire is either swimming in Long Island Sound or walking among beach roses.