Barbara Trachtenberg

Early May

The dogwood blossoms seem best when I’m alone.
The white one’s brown, mottled kisses
like smudged lipstick on each petal.

I love the blossoms’ four prone petals
thrown back shallow cups of sun
iridescent in the gathering afternoon storm.

Their dancers’ arms interrupt each other,
children, calling, “Me, me! Oh, see my spring.”

Cut now in a glass pitcher
they’re as vulnerable in their perfect beauty
as our most private moments together.

Barbara Trachtenberg is a writer, teacher and school psychologist. She plays with visual art and travels with impunity, especially to Mexico. Barbara is a MacDowell fellow. Her writing has been featured at Boston City Hall, in Words and Images, the Multicultural Review, ArtsEditor, and in anthropology publications, among others. She has been a member of the Writers’ Room of Boston and teaches writing in PEN New England’s Prison Writing Program, and English as a Second Language at Boston U and Harvard.