Therese L. Broderick

Pandora

“snowflakes…cause chaos”
Baedeker ’s Greece

It’s not a box she holds,
but a sloping jar
formed from clay
and baked in the sun.
And as she tips it
toward her, curious,
one mild vice flutters away
like a snowflake
and then harsher ones

and then—blizzard.

On the hills above the bay,
sunflowers, olives,
grapevines on arbors—
all vanish in a white siege.
And a fine frost lays upon
her face—
the first woman’s all-adorned face—
so that she can see, then give a name
to every crystal’s
stark inscription:

—envy, greed, theft,
pride, apathy, rage—

Shivering, she lets go;
the vast swirling settles,
the suddenly heavier horizon
shudders.

Still inside—
her thin, receding
icicle.

These Seven Years

In some past self we hardened
Around the deepest stone
Within us which we must now
These seven years
Bring to surface with blade
Or trowel. Raised, felt, it will
Settle atop the ground, guardian
Of our flowers, fending away
The wind and rain. Like mounds
In a rock garden, evident
And intentional, what we raise
Becomes then what we step upon,
Where we balance for another age
Before releasing our next stony thing:
That quick beetle, pebbled,
Hiding beneath.

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