Sunflowers & Bony Wings: poems by Gail benEzra. Number 8 in our A.V. Christie Series, selected by series editor Sandy Yannone.
Publication: October 2, 2026 [100 copies]
32 pages
ISBN 978-1-960693-40-2
$ 12.00
Gail benEzra is a graduate of Denver’s Lighthouse Writers’ Poetry Book Project. Her manuscript, “Stitches That Seam the World,” was a semifinalist in the 2017 Crab Orchard Poetry Book Award and longlisted by the 2018 Grayson Books Poetry Contest. Her poems have been published in Pulse, THINK Journal, 3Elements, and Global Polemic, and in the anthology, An Uncertain Age: Poems by Bold Women.
The Art of Survival
A hullabaloo of early birdcalls tweet-
tweet, nudging me awake. No time
to dawdle over coffee. I leave
my cane behind, stuff a hank
of hemp into my pocket, grab
my large wicker basket, and armed
with meat-and-bone shears,
I set out—high spirited as the holiday
school-sprung girl I used to be.
Undeterred by creaky knees and hips,
I limp across the snow-patched field,
and there, spread wide along the fence line,
a bedazzling—leafless boughs clothed
in clusters of bright yellow four-lobed petals
all jitterbugging in the breeze.
Forsooth, forsythia! my husband would whoop,
as if each year this dancing harbinger
of spring, was his hit-the-jackpot miracle.
I get to work, lopping off branches,
hardly noting the ache in my shoulders,
the spasming in my back, my neck,
my hands, and in my scissoring thumb.
With the hemp, I twine the boughs together,
and pile them in my basket. At home, stiff-kneed,
I climb the step stool, pause so the dizziness
can pass, and reach up high for my mother-in-law’s
matte-white heavy porcelain jar.
My breath is short, but I can’t rest yet.
I arrange and rearrange the arched branches
with their buds and yellow blooms, until
their lines, angles, and density create harmony.
I sip my abandoned coffee. Stand back and look.
Ahh, yes . . . forsooth, forsythia!
- To order Gail’s chapbook via Paypal, please click here. You may also query sevenkitchenspress@gmail.com to set up alternate means of payment.
- Thank you for supporting our poets. Please note that each copy is made by hand.
- We welcome chapbook reviews. Please contact us for a digital review copy.
