The Music of Reaching

Under the Sign of Ivy
by Marianne Szlyk

A tendril
inches up
a street tree
as the pianist
flexes his fingers.

In the apartment
across the street,
a willowy blonde
with a purple flower
in her hair
poses like a houseplant
reaching for
autumn sunlight.

The late afternoon
pianist is
holding back
until it is time
for his fingers
to race
up and down
the keys
from black to white
to black again.

In the waning light,
the ivy also hesitates.
It is sucking in poison
that months from now
will sprout
into juicy green
rising from
once-bitter ground.

—–

Marianne Szlyk lives in the Washington, DC suburbs without a car and likes to walk in the city, so the name of this press appeals to her. Her poems have appeared in Of/with, Pyrokinection, Aberration Labyrinth, Literature Today, bird’s thumb, and Poppy Road Review as well as in several anthologies by Kind of a Hurricane Press. Her first chapbook, Listening to Electric Cambodia, Looking up at Trees of Heaven, is available at http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-to-electric-cambodia-looking.html . She edits The Song Is…, a blog-zine devoted to work inspired by music: http://thesongis.blogspot.com/ and hopes that you will send poems, artwork, and even flash fiction there!