Simplest Magic
by Brenda Cárdenas
I never asked for a picket fence
adorned in Queen Anne’s lace,
wrens whistling at my balcony,
for eggs and bacon brought to me
in bed, or a childhood of heart-
shaped balloons. I never expected
rivers of champagne to flow
at my perfumed feet or visitors
to charm me with bouquets of expansive
vocabulary. I’ve only ever longed
for the simplest magic—the way
hibiscus opens its broad face
to August sun, at dusk closes around
summer as if to savor her on its tongue,
the sweet-tart of rhubarb on mine.
I hoped to gather a small basket
of stones, arrange them in my garden,
catch a glimpse of deer legs disappearing
in the woods, to step around the itchy
nettles invading the trail I chose to take
to you.
adorned in Queen Anne’s lace,
wrens whistling at my balcony,
for eggs and bacon brought to me
in bed, or a childhood of heart-
shaped balloons. I never expected
rivers of champagne to flow
at my perfumed feet or visitors
to charm me with bouquets of expansive
vocabulary. I’ve only ever longed
for the simplest magic—the way
hibiscus opens its broad face
to August sun, at dusk closes around
summer as if to savor her on its tongue,
the sweet-tart of rhubarb on mine.
I hoped to gather a small basket
of stones, arrange them in my garden,
catch a glimpse of deer legs disappearing
in the woods, to step around the itchy
nettles invading the trail I chose to take
to you.
Brenda Cárdenas has authored Trace (Red Hen Press), winner of the 2023 Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry and silver winner for Foreword Review’s Indie Poetry Prize; Boomerang (Bilingual Press); and three chapbooks. She also co-edited Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance and Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in many literary journals and anthologies, including Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, SWWIM, Mom Egg Review, Braving the Body, Latinx Poetics: The Art of Poetry, TAB: Journal of Poetry and Poetics, and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Anthology, among others. Cárdenas served as Milwaukee’s Poet Laureate and is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.