Amy Gerstler

Datura (aka Jimson Weed)

Shoots grow toward the light

while roots move away from it    

sending tendrils to netherworlds

from which they draw strength

having heard trees laugh

there's no need for words      

birds somersault overhead

feathered zealots all

but that's not the whole story

each time I'm high

I look for you in vain

among jimson weed leaves

which are long, smooth and toothed

festooned with tiny mouths

as our pore-filled skin is

jimson weed leaves have a nauseating taste

but the flowers’ white trumpets blare feed on me

eating or smoking jimson weed

may create sexual liberation

or long-form zombie-dom

soldiers given it begin french kissing

toxin concentration varies leaf to leaf

after a jimson trip you may not remember

anything about the previous ten days

your habits of heart may be upended

ditto your mission to become apparition

faces on book covers in well-lit store windows

may ask you to paint crowns above their heads

and carve a great winding staircase from solid rock

for them to descend amidst thunderous applause

thank heaven we are not always tightly confined

to the mindless grind of sobriety

but can be privy to exploded views

of cosmic abundance so hard to understand

yet always near at hand

Paper Legs  (poem with a postscript)

what does it mean to dream

that you have paper legs

leaf-flat lower extremities      

the color of spilt milk

in prehistoric times

fish evolved spindly legs

that's how humans began

as sea life anxious

to amble dry land,   

manage gadgets, live indoors

and take aim at the sacred

a hundred year old tree

escapes being cut down

and milled into paper

it shares this good news

with fellow arboretum trees

through fine hairlike roots

exuding chemicals which serve

as both food and language

after months of drunk fighting

and weeks of not speaking

your boyfriend moves out

takes his black dog with him

a dog you love so much

that you stomp to where he works

climb the cab of his truck

where he was just eating lunch

and jump up and down on the hood

yelling at him

he locks all the doors

cowering behind the steering wheel

dog on his lap

and when cops arrive

you scream that the dog should be yours

after the several hells this jerk put you through

they don't arrest you

but they won't give you the dog either

let off with a warning

there's nothing to do but trudge home

on legs like strips of antique map

webbed with fictious rivers

or more accurately perhaps

your shaky legs simply feel

like they're dissolving

Paper Legs, postscript

Here again, that dream fragment. I had paper legs!

Flat, pure white. I felt lighter, athletic, as I

strode through date palm forests. A coconut

cake arrived in the mail, looking feathery

and delicious. I danced it into the kitchen,

to the glass domed cake plate’s great delight.

It’s weirdly quiet right now, like in the paper

legs dream. Instagram offers a herd of goats

chowing down on a mountain of strawberries

heaped in a wheelbarrow. Would I like to be

one of them? I’ve heard it takes a long time

to turn into a goat, but I'm willing to wait.

Prayer Upon Rising

Lord, allow me to understand how each gritty

little minute is utterly yummy. Let me embrace

this belief no matter how many bewigged kings

rule the land I inhabit during my pipsqueak

lifetime. I just want to be adored and perfectly

lit at all times. Is that too gigantic an ask?

Some supplicants hammer You with demands:

Terms apply, Lord, and here are my terms!  Don’t

let me be one of them. Make me mindful

that any day I could wake up as a sack

of red wiggler worms. Teach me to enjoy

my own company. Help me survive aging’s

outrages with grace. When death comes, let me

slip into it as a hot tub filled with effervescent

breast milk. Let me accept death as easily

as snakes make friends, as thoughtfully as rats

reflect on their pasts, as lightly as my long dead

parents danced the foxtrot to Nat King Cole

singing “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home.”