Neglected Garden, by Caterina Tarallo
Elizabeth Seton College, 1989
Here each statue lacks a nose,
a finger, or even both,
and in a hand’s dismantled hollow
a spider weaves its growth.
Farther in, amid the tangle,
a ruined fountain appears.
Each catch bowl bleached like a bone.
No water poured for years.
On the side two struggling birds
traced in bas-relief.
One’s claws dig the other’s back.
Her beak locks on like teeth.
The same two birds occur again
on an urn still farther in.
One side is crumbling to dust.
The lichen have moved in.
This time the two are face to face,
a food bowl in the middle.
Since neither dares lower its head
no one wins this battle.
Beyond the urn a flower bed
and then a black gate looms.
On top a final bird in stone
casts shadows on the blooms:
an eagle, with its wings outstretched,
but it too shows decay.
While one wing still advances out
the other breaks away.
And on a column by the gate
a face like God’s face peeks
indignantly between volutes
that flatten his fat cheeks.
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Dawn Corrigan has published poems and prose in more than 80 print and online journals and anthologies. Her work has been nominated for awards including the Pushcart, the Million Writers Awards, and Best of the Net. She lives in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and works for the Pensacola Housing Office administering housing assistance programs for low-income families.
To read more of her work, visit her website at dawncorrigan.com
Caterina Tarallo is a talented Italian artist living in the U.K. Specializing in pencils and inks, her work is breathtaking in its likeness to reality. To see more of her work, please visit her webpage at tarallo12.deviantart.com.
