~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Gina Ferrara

Variations in Fencing

Always before the afternoon rains,

when the sky was a chosen color and empty

or held clouds harmlessly white,

scalloped, voluminous,

chain links obliterated, we sought the vine covered,

lithe, armed with imagination:

the objective to walk the fence,

entrenched in tangles, twists,

segueing to intricacies and gnarled complications,

small trumpet blossoms, hidden droplets of nectar,

appearing as a river, the verdant

too dark, too jade to offer reflections,

resistant to confinement and control,

nothing landscaped, the patch of thorn prone pyracantha,

loquats gold, dollop sized orbs, pink bristled mimosas,

we took turns, some navigating,

others shook with grinning intent,

to simulate the feeling

on either side of a fault line,

seconds before the fissure. 

Duplex: In Autumn

Whenever the sweet olive bloomed, my father burned leaves

The floral and charred, two scents paired like hands

His hand that never aimed a gun, only to plant and scorch

Unlike a boy, blooming prolific, limbs, gangly, shooting branches

Everything: singular, smoldering anger, everything the plurality of leaves

My father smelled sweet olive recognizable as anger

Fury made my father dig and burn

The dichotomy never caused him to grab a gun

A red-handled shovel, a circular skosh of kerosene,

My father’s pile of leaves smoldered next to sweet olive

Life and death, plots of opposites, in his backyard

My father did not own a gun

At the time I never thought it symbolic

Whenever the sweet olive bloomed, my father burned leaves.

Gina Ferrara lives and writes in New Orleans. She has written five poetry collections, including her latest, Amiss, published in 2023 by Dos Madres Press. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including the Poetry Ireland Review, The Briar Cliff Review, and Tar River Poetry. She is editor of The New Orleans Poetry Journal Press and teaches at Delgado Community College.