Julie L. Moore: “Pairing”
PAIRING
Welcome even in January, peach ice cream
slathers my tongue, when crimson
shocks the cone and the top of the scoop
with eerie iridescence,
and every lick and lap I take leaves behind
more blood, thanks to my lip surprisingly
split by days of dry air. Peach paired
with iron, vanilla with thorn.
Was this odd mix what Ezekiel tasted, too,
when God unrolled the scroll of lamentation,
which he told him to eat?
When he found those words so sweet?
As though the underbelly of woe actually bears
an amber glow. As though the smallest of joys
can pierce dark prophecy or hardened hearts,
injecting hope like a honey bee ceaselessly working
and in the face of any threat
(imagine it: the face is yours!),
giving up its life for the hive.
Julie L. Moore’s fourth collection of poetry Full Worm Moon was published in March by Cascade Books in its Poiema Poetry Series. She is also the author of Particular Scandals, Slipping Out of Bloom, and Election Day. A previous contributor to Valparaiso Poetry Review, Moore has had recent poetry appear in Image, New Ohio Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, and Verse Daily. Her work also has appeared in several anthologies, including Becoming: What Makes a Woman, published by University of Nebraska Gender Programs, and Every River On Earth: Writing from Appalachian Ohio, published by Ohio University Press. Moore is an Associate Professor of English and the Writing Center Director at Taylor University.