Bebe in the Bramble, by Marianne Peel

Untitled (Bebe Marie), by Joseph Cornell (USA) early 1940s

Bebe in the Bramble
  
A slip of the foot and you are lost in sticks.  A maze of kindling.  You steady the brim of your hat.  Your hat a cornucopia of leaves that have lost all colour.  Drained of summer’s rouge and ready for the campfire. The pumpkins have begun to shrivel in on themselves.  Before the deer have gutted them.  Papaw always left them out behind the tobacco drying shed.  Smashed them with the dull end of his ax.  Made it easy for the deer to devour the innards of the pumpkin.  Told me they always left some of the seeds behind. He’d roast them and salt them good.  Have them with his morning joe while Meemaw flattened out the biscuit dough.  And I see your hands submerged in a muff.  Warm. Sweating now, I think.  And you continue to look straight on, as if you have not been waylaid by a clot of sticks. As if one step will unbalance you.  I want to rescue you.  Strip this kindling away.  Like peeling the bark of a birch.  One paper mâché layer at a time.  Slowly. Never knowing what you’d find beneath the pincurls of birch bark.  The apples in your basket are shriveled, too.  Like the pumpkins.  Your apples would make a dry, dry compote.  Something to grind with your incisors. Like a day-old raisin scone at Miss Jezebel’s Bakery at the Four Corners.   I am wishing the branches were sticks of cinnamon.  A saucepan of water is simmering on the way-back burner.   Starting to boil with bubbles.  Slowly.  I place the cinnamon sticks into the water.  Careful not to scald my fingertips.  I sprinkle in some cloves.  Pour you a cup of spiced tea.  Blow on it to cool it for your tongue.  Here, give me your hand.  I am afraid your feet will trip on the stubborn roots of the old pin oak.  Give me your hand.  I will guide you out of the woods.  Can you smell the spiced tea, heavy with cinnamon and cloves, waiting for your tongue? 
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Marianne Peel

Marianne Peel loves poetry that literally makes her stop breathing.  She worked for thirty-two years as an English teacher, learning life lessons from her students as well as from Albee's Zoo Story, Williams' Streetcar Named Desire, and Shaffer's Equus. She loves to play Native American Flute and ukulele in the woods. She’s taught teachers in China for three summers, studied in Nepal and Turkey on Fulbright Scholarships, and has danced in the rain forests of Bali, Indonesia. Her debut book of poetry is No Distance Between Us through Shadelandhouse Modern Press.  She has a second full-length collection, Singing is Praying Twice, published in 2024, from the same publisher.