Garden by Eleonore Schönmaier

April 1, 2022

POEM TITLE: Garden POET NAME: Eleonore Schonmaier POEM: When I arrive at the house you search and search but the tall bushes reveal only green leaves. You want to show me the flower, “Did my mother pick it?” You disappear and return with apricots placing half in my hands and we enter the living room: Anthie in her coma. Hour by hour the doctor injects opiates. He shows you how to rub lotion into your sister’s back. You go out and in and suddenly say, “Come with me.” It’s late afternoon and the flowers have opened. You show me how the bees enter and how their backs are brushed with pollen and you gently touch between my shoulder blades. At the bus stop days later a woman gestures swim, gestures walk. She wants to know why I’m here. Suddenly she touches the black in the flower of my fabric and I nod, yes. And for the first time I really see the design of my dress: the passion fruit flower from your garden. END OF POEM. CREDITS AND BIO: Copyright © Eleonore Schönmaier Previously published in Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021). Eleonore Schönmaier’s most recent collection is Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021). Wavelengths of Your Song (MQUP, 2013) was published in German translation as Wellenlängen deines Liedes (parasitenpresse, 2020). Dust Blown Side of the Journey (MQUP, 2017) was a finalist for the Eyelands Book Awards (Greece). Treading Fast Rivers (MQUP) was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. She has taught advanced fiction courses at St. Mary’s University, creative writing at Mount Saint Vincent University, and has worked as a poetry mentor for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. Her poetry has been set to music by Canadian, Dutch, Scottish, American and Greek composers and she has performed her poetry in concert with The New European Ensemble among others. She has won the Alfred G. Bailey Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, and the National Broadsheet Contest 2019, and more. She has also been widely anthologised in the United States and in Canada including Wild Gods (New Rivers Press, 2020) and Best Canadian Poetry in English. eleonoreschonmaier.com