Appoggiatura, by Mikki Aronoff

The Botany Lesson, by Leonor Fini (France, Italy, b. Argentina). 1974.

Appoggiatura                                

Swirl, then swallow the seeds –
you will grow into grace,

la professeur de botanique instructs, 
anemonae fingers waving towards me,

unaware of the juddering waves of heat 
between my thighs. Her pale hair bleeds 

into ether as her left hand falls into a mudra 
of plucking, teases the flower’s fourchette. 

Her mouth opens in concert with petals 
wide in brazen exposure on a pedestal 

that lifts it to her longing. She folds 
into its heady bouquet.

~     ~     ~  

I lock my hands over my pleasure, 
muffle the larval throb of last night’s 

pollination, harmonized to my music teacher’s 
Accent! Attack! – tender, stinging, as he draws 

his bow strung with his long black hair 
across my waist, leaves tracks that glow

and reflect his ready want. I shed 
my chiffon carapace, gasp as he whips

the spiraled straps from my thighs, 
tethers his desire to my dreams, plucks

my seeds, deposits rosins of greed. 
Diamonds fly from my mouth. 

Our tendrils wrap till dawn, tremolos 
thrumming on – stamen...stigma….

Mikki Aronoff
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Mikki Aronoff’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Lake, EastLit, Virga, Love’s Executive Order, bosque and Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and elsewhere. A New Mexico poet, she is also involved in animal advocacy.