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​That Moment

 

Between the unresolved seventh and the tonic chord
expectation flares, a heat not unlike what magnolias muster
to enthrall their pollinators, which are—surprise, surprise—                
not bees but beetles. Do you not feel the heat of that subverted 
expectation, that moment when you moved from not knowing 
to knowing that magnolias existed long before bees, and so 
made do with—in fact evolved for—the inefficiency of beetles?                     

And the magnolia’s thermogenesis—another surprise, like gazing
at the shadow of a candle to discover the shadow of its heat
rising. As with candlelight, expectation is sometimes wave, 
sometimes particle, a duality that rings an unresolved seventh 
in my mind. I heard it this morning, realizing that I do not, after all, hate
my life: that invisible heat, the heady scent of those leathery petals 
as they cunningly close, to cage the bumbling beetle in redolence.

 

Jessica Goodfellow’s poetry books are Whiteout (University of Alaska Press, 2017), Mendeleev’s Mandala, and The Insomniac’s Weather Report. A former writer-in-residence at Denali National Park and Preserve, she’s had poems in The Southern Review, Ploughshares, Scientific American, and The Best American Poetry. Jessica lives and works in Japan.

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