Wild Flowers of America

Notes on Herbal Remedies

 

Muddy the waters of your faith,

crush the petals, make a paste.

Apply liberally to scratches and bruises.

               

             The ghostflower feeds on the bodies

of those decaying around it.

Sing to the Azan flower?

               

             Children should be warned,

they are not who they are.

               

             Use the roots of the white baneberry

to rally the dead, black snakeroot

to expel the dance of St. Vitus from

the little girls with mouths like

bags of worms.

 

Manton Church Camp, Summer 1994

I saw two beings walking towards me in a field. I was sitting up in my bed in the loft of my grandma’s cabin, staring out the small window to the open field. They made jerking movements as they walked and the air around them was vibrating, like they did not have a solid form. Their movements were slow and slightly out of sync, like the frequency they existed on was not stable and was fading in and out. As I stared out the window of the loft in the cabin, I tried to make the things familiar.

 

Speculation

 

Is it a Prophecy

the Queen-Moon

 

is it the Blood Moon
                                                                            I saw no fairies last night
                                                                            only a black disk vibrating

                                                                                                                    in full eclipse

 

 

Patti Jeane Pangborn is a PhD student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, studying English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago. Her poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review issue 27 and Shadowgraph Quarterly. She is originally from Michigan.