Pamela Uschuk

Spring Runoff

Pamela Uschuk

Nameless tiny lilac flowers sing wanton as finches
cosseted by grass near the Los Piños tumescent
with runoff the color of cappuccino on a humid day in Venice
when love was a hand full of violets lusting
in a foreign tongue thrust down my throat.
I refuse to gather these perfect purple blooms, knowing
they live longer in their own thawed soil,
along this water rushing wild as sex in another life.

Pamela Uschuk is a political activist and wilderness advocate and has howled out six books of poems, including Crazy Love, winner of a 2010 American Book Award, and Wild in the Plaza of Memory. A new collection of poems, Blood Flower, was published this year. Uschuk has been awarded the 2011 War Poetry Prize from Winnng Writers, 2010 New Millennium Poetry Prize, 2010 Best of the Web, the Struga International Poetry Prize (for a theme poem), the Dorothy Daniels Writing Award from the National League of American PEN Women, the King’s English Poetry Prize and prizes from Ascent, Iris, and Amnesty International. She is Editor-In-Chief of CUTTHROAT, A JOURNAL OF THE ARTS. Uschuk is a featured writer at the Prague Summer Programs. She’s working on a multi-genre book called THE BOOK OF HEALERS HEALING; AN ODYSSEY THROUGH OVARIAN CANCER. She lives in Colorado.