BLUE TULIP

 

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Thread your needle blue,

O hand of god, and sew

your sea and firmament,

sew dress whose hem

is angel edge, sew artery

and under-tongue, apse,

tesserae, damselfly,

sew cobalt spangled trout

and periwinkle eyelid

of the slumbered dove,

plum seam, salamander,

bottle tree, sew opal blade

pre-sacrifice, chiton,

sook’s serrated carapace,

leviathan and spruce, 

contusion, sew mica fleck,

and nazar, sew Sapho

longwing, skink lingua,

peak and lightening edge

and shipwormed mermaid

figurehead, bioluminescent

asterism pulsing midnight’s

riptide, sew afterburner 

and blush of magpie,

moonlit anvil, bubblegum,

sew wiper fluid, vial top,

maize and sundog diamond

dust, sew wildstyle Krylon

along underpass’s heaven

spot and cusp of far-flung

star and spore and corpse

but spare the tulip petal

its due thread of blue

if only so we may

contemplate one more

terrific, untold way we

might fulfill on this blue

earth your terrific,

untold handiwork.

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BIO:

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​Joseph J. Capista is the author of Intrusive Beauty (Ohio University Press). His poems have appeared in Agni, Copper Nickel, The Georgia Review, The Hudson Review and Ploughshares.  He teaches at Towson University and lives with his family in Baltimore.

 

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