Notes for the Cactus Poem

by Michael Schmidt

Michael Schmidt

The teddy bear cholla and the fat fat

Oh buckthorn, devil, whipple, teddy bear

Oh beavertail, oh pancake, porcupine

Oh plump saguaro with your hairy arms, I love
Each of you with a different nerve of heart.
Especially you, so trim, so pert, your birds
Cupped in your pits and crotches, little friends

Oh areoles and aureoles, the orioles
With yellow caps are havering and hot
Making themselves a breeze with their cut wings

I ask the docent and he indicates

Oh nation, how you might have been, spread from
So sure an order, with such tendering love

From: 
2010, New and Collected Poems





Last updated July 18, 2021