Poetry by Jeanne Obbard
HOW IS A LILY BEST UNDERSTOOD

Not forwards but backwards,
its shape a bell curve in time.

As heat, lowering;
as thunder coming up from the south.

As milk-white, as incarnadine, as burgundy,
as wine, worn down in the cask.

Fantastically, as a clock ticking.

From lilies, whose voices are all contralto,
who knows where an exhaled breath goes – 

places you linger over,
repeated birdsong – 

– as nights with no lilies at all.

Jeanne Obbard received her bachelor’s degree in feminist and gender studies from Bryn Mawr College, and works in clinical trial management in the greater Philadelphia area. Her poetry and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Drunk Monkeys, The Moth, and Poetry Daily. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Awards and is a former Leeway Seedling Award winner.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #49.

Submit to Cleaver!