​Little Garden All Around, by Judith Fox

The Sheaf, by Henri Matisse (France) 1953

​Little Garden All Around
  
Once airborne child, now grounded adult, I crave 
away-days, time 
 
apart
 
from the quotidian: tea from the usual tin, Post-it notes 
stuck to the edge of my desktop, pencil-revised 
poems in a corner of the floor.
The 24/7 sameness of my routine.
 
Like Matisse, I need to scissor
and draw
directly in the colour… 
create
a little garden all around me where I can walk.
 
So I cut
 
not from beige paper but brightly painted sheets:
five days alone
with poems, books, wine
on a patio surrounded by a tumble of magenta bougainvillea, 
startling white gardenias, 
giant birds of paradise with midnight bracts, ivory petals, 
green banana-like leaves, discover 
a new way
 
in old age
to flower.  
 
Judith Fox
 
Judith Fox is a finalist for the 2025 Bellevue Literary Review’s John & Eileen Allman’s Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, Between Verse and Chorus is a finalist for the 2024 Nine Syllables Press Chapbook Contest and semifinalist for the Wolfson Press Chapbook Prize. Her collection, Bridge to New Music is a semifinalist for the 2024 Longleaf Press Book Prize. Two of her poems are semifinalists in the 2024 Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize. Her poems appeared in Rattle, Poet Lore, Jabberwock Review and other journals. Her photographs are in the collections of six museums.