Basia Wilson
Basia Wilson is a poet. She holds a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from Temple University. In addition to working as an independent bookseller, she is associate poetry editor at Platform Review. Basia enjoys baking, gardening and laughing at the neighborhood blue jays in South Jersey, where she lives. Her latest work is forthcoming from bedfellows magazine.
Apothecary Bar
A Taurus walks into an apothecary bar.
She slips permission slips
between the bars of the desire cage.
She takes a deep breath:
neroli, cedarwood, indulgence.
She hangs her debt on the back of the chair.
She takes a moment, then another.
She picks sprigs & gathers
bushels in her bag:
mint, basil, time.
She completes her therapeutic purchase.
She goes home.
She plops her debt on the floor.
She whips up a fabulous dinner & pretends
Terry Gross is talking to her too.
Do you have any regrets?
Dim the lights.
She debates whether she will watch TV & eat,
or listen to Terry Gross & eat,
or eat in silence.
She eats in silence.
She glares at the emptiness sitting across from her.
A flare of the nostrils, a hoof to the heart.
She takes a swing.
She spits nectar at that girl.
She cleans the nectar off the mirror.
She cracks open, like a window, ache.
She goes to bed.
She wakes cricket-quick & whips
up a fabulous breakfast.
She sighs & starts again.
She wipes the debt from her lips.
Jasper
Aries saunters into the shop,
all bracelets & gracious energy.
Her laughter a grand
chorus, a wide-open rose.
As if declaring herself right,
or alive, she says, I am whole.
At her brimless thanksgiving
I marvel, tipping my too quickly
emptied glass.
She chides my shoddy
generosity, says some things are meant
just for me
& will speak like a first language
my frequency.
The way this jasper acclimates
to the climate of my pocket & studies
my particular heat & pulse
as I learn how to walk like an adult,
learn balance, learn offer
is not a synonym for sacrifice.
I marvel
at this newly
discovered territory:
the long, habitable space
between all & nothing.
“And when the fire moves away…”
you know what they say
you can only lead
a heartsick
horse to water
I wanted badly to be
the water & swore I was
the world’s greatest
lake but really my acres
were arid & numerous
you fumbled your flint
we injured so much
of me into ash
I called it keeping you
warm
even the sun grew
sick of my wannabe burning
all those times
I put on that costume
to play the role
of the fool-phoenix
barely an ember the ensemble
now reduced to rags
I’ve since unhorsed
myself from this
the bridle unlatched & loose
you do what you want
with the lake
I am
on the other side
enjoying the view