Rae Gouirand

Daucus Carota

I went with my bucket
to the light’s edge, its insides charcoal-shadowed,

its radius wide enough to swallow
all the lace, all the rock rose. It sounded

as I did, swung empty by the catch
of its rough handle in the punch, caught the wind.

This is a portrait I come back to,
a self with said bucket in the moment before

stooping, before arriving at
what a self might cut. I see it thinking of

cliffside whippings. I catch something
passing through me about why I’ve read all

I’ve read—why I was trained
to read, why I was taught to believe in

the value of what passes through
the hand. Around this question, the wild carrot

dances, its ferny leaves articulating
the ground, its flattened clusters mimicking

fireworks, sunspots in the eye,
messages in agar from some longago class,

their single dark purple floret
quoting Queen Anne’s needled finger.

Here in the roadside, here
in the dry field, the lace as living as any

animal walking past. Its feather-
like leaflets divide again, again; the yellow taproot

resolves to travel;
the hollow branched stem lifts feet for

the breeze; up to a thousand
tiny white blooms unfurling upon their umbrels,