Orange Flowers
There is a large joy in my hands.
When the orange flowers find my fingers,
my love is a bright pinwheel of orange.
I count joy on my tongue. Its numbers
pull away, unsticking. When the flowers give
themselves to me, I am a drum of my own light.
With patient hands I touch the shape of my life.
The hands of the orange flowers hold mine
and together we sing tall songs of prayer
into this very quiet room, letting it drink us.
The truth is we are both dying.
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Emily Vizzo is a San Diego writer, editor, and educator currently serving as AME for Drunken Boat. She also volunteers with VIDA, Poetry International, and Hunger Mountain. Vizzo’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in FIELD, The Journal, Sequestrum, The Normal School, and North American Review. She received note for an essay in Best American Essays 2013. Vizzo has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and teaches yoga at the University of San Diego.