Foundling Review

Gladioli sprouted last night,

deep in a dream, from a planter

squatted in the middle of a veranda,

their purple arms stretched tall

like indigo ink spilt across blank paper,

or like the many arms of Durga,

each with its divine purpose

reached up and multiplied

until the gauzy clouds faded

behind the floral show,

over the house: a mere succession

of vulgar, yet clean rooms:

walls in blue Turkish bathhouse tiles,

knock-kneed ottomans, cushions

embellished with gold sequins

and delicate tassels where we plunged

and gyrated, juggled in Durga’s hands,

once a lotus, then a discus—

then a trident.

Later, during a walk,

I warmed my balled fists
with a tail of breath from within my belly,

so unlike the dry wind against

my cheeks. To my left a mound

of faded mulch and shriveled leaves
yields to a peak of violet—

its damp hands clasped in prayer.

Andrea O’Rourke is a native of Croatia. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where she paints large abstracts and attends the New South Poetry Workshop at Georgia State University. Her work has appeared in The Driftwood Review and her poem “Vrindavan Trails” won the first prize in the Atlanta Writers Club 2009 Contest.

Some dreams are more vivid than others. The one this poem was inspired by had a peculiar quality: its degree of reality seemed greater than daily life. Even though the relationship between fantasy and reality is a mystery, occasionally these distinct places seem linked. I took this idea and looked at it from the perspective of human conditions of longing and obsession.