We are pleased to offer our Poets Read series in honor of National Poetry Month 2019 and will run it throughout the month of April.
Every day in April, our website and our YouTube channel will feature the voice of a poet whose work has appeared in our pages over the past year. On Sundays, we will offer two poets for your enjoyment.
Today’s poem is Imprinting by Peggy Landsman and it appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of Gyroscope Review.
Imprinting
by Peggy Landsman
All day long,
all around town,
I can’t escape
nasturtiums.
Like gaggles of geese,
they follow…
I’m no Konrad Lorenz!
Suddenly stopping
dead in my tracks,
“Quit trumpeting,”
I command.
Their delicate petals
do not melt my heart.
They flutter
their green leaves
like fans.
To serve them right,
to make an example,
I pull up whole bunches,
several loose handfuls;
toss them straight into my salad.
True to their nature,
they will not learn.
It is I who get taught
a lesson.
All night long,
like essence of onion,
strangely determined,
nasturtiums
burn.
About the Poet: Peggy Landsman is the author of a poetry chapbook, To-wit To-woo (Foothills Publishing). Her work has been published in many literary journals and anthologies, including, most recently, The Hypertexts, Gyroscope Review, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (Lost Horse Press), and SWWIM Every Day. She currently lives in South Florida where she swims in the warm Atlantic Ocean every chance she gets. peggylandsman.wordpress.com