Mark J. Mitchell
Notes on Tea From the Drowned City
Beyond the walls, low rolling hills
grow yellow blooms. Come Fall, they went
vermillion, ready. Plucked by hand
on half-moon nights, young girls would sort
the perfect flowers, making tea.
The only tea the great ones drink
On the back of the hill
there are brown and green leaves.
The small girls stoop to pick
only choicest, the soft
supple ones, to take home
to their mothers for their tea.
A Parable of Apples
She drops
green-gold fruit
to slow down
running children.
“Soft for cider,”
she calls,
“firm ones
for school pies.”
Then she takes
her first step
up her leaning
ladder and plucks red.
Before dropping
a full sack
to the boy below,
she looks up.
Shining red and
and perfect, she stretches.
Is this sin?
Her bite’s quick and sharp.
Mark J. Mitchell has been a working poet for 50 years. He’s the author of five full-length collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. A novel, A Book of Lost Songs, is due out in 2025.He’s fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, or his website.