Each blade of grass whispers to the other. The name was ether borne. G held it. ‘Iolanthe’ he said one morning and I cocked my head. I didn’t know this word. She was waiting in the studio naked.
Spell it. I-O-L-A-N-T-H-E
Why did you say this. G, ‘Gilbert & Sullivan, the music’. It’s her name.
Iolanthe, Iolanthe, Iolanthe. She perks up.
I have delphiniums blooming in my garden dropped from a bird. I stay open around Iolanthe. She floats her words like a bothersome mosquito. I find her asleep in a pile of silk. At night I dream her clothes.
Have I sewn a small thought out of linen. She has no bones, no wings. I want to leave her sleeping and forget all this. I could be propping up delphinium spears and drinking tea.
The garden is full of rabbits. I run and get G and they disappear. So I hold on to the hem of this thought and get busy.
Iolanthe, I whisper, you are the seed the wind carried in my mind and left in the earth to germinate.
But why rabbit ears………….
xoLA
Is a Woman 