Delmarva Review: By Some God Meticulously Kept by Lisa Low

Author’s Note: “This poem suggests that though beauty has its own power and is flush with pleasure, it is held in check and made to suffer by the superseding strength of a brutal and jealous god. Feminine beauty, however powerful, is often captive to and crushed by the raw strength of the masculine.”

By Some God Meticulously Kept

Look through that slat and you will see the
flowers dancing in the field below,
bending their heavy heads by miraculous
device of thin green stems held up;
flouncing every which way, showing
to the courting wind every possible
vantage of loveliness and hue:
lavender, violet, ivory, rose, and blue;
yellow to the verge of the pebbled throat,
and from there to the pinpricked center,
where pollen is piled and drops of blood
through the sieved skin are leaking, pink and
aching. Ploughed by rough winds for seeding.
Kept stationary by a jealous god.

♦

Lisa Low has been an English professor for twenty years, teaching at Cornell College, Colby College, and Pace University. She received her doctorate in English literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her poetry, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared in Massachusetts Review, Boston Review, The Boston Herald, Phoebe, Delmarva Review, Potomac Review, and Crack the Spine, among others. She lives in Connecticut.
Delmarva Review is a national literary journal with strong regional roots. It specializes in publishing the best of new poetry and prose selected from thousands of submissions annually.

The Review is an independent, 501(c)(3) journal, supported by contributions and a grant from the Talbot County Arts Council with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. It is sold in paperback and electronic editions at Amazon.com and other major online booksellers and specialty regional bookstores. Website: DelmarvaReview.org.