Those speaking Latin are the doctors and gardeners.
  Cleyera Japonica.  Dementia Praecox.
Before I was born a grandfather added himself
to the rafters, tongue a black tulip.
Something was unbearable, dementia like grinning weed,
    letters from Denmark, insects
infesting the compass rose.

Sunsleeping.

Your ivy dies and you put at risk the evermore,
     each flower speaking with a doctor's voice
its double names: anxiety and dread.
If you listened you could hardly move.
    The gravity of the body
is a weight that extinguishes itself. I towel off the light,
The iris are apparently screaming
    but so high we miss the blame.

ALLAN PETERSON'S manuscript, Anonymous Or, won the Defined Providence Press competition.  New poems are forthcoming in Fine Madness and Notre Dame Review.  Recent print appearances: Marlboro Review; Rhino 2001; Pleiades; Bellingham Review; Iron Horse Review; Amherst Review; Southern Poetry Review. Recent Online journals: poetscanvas.com; words on a wire; Wired Hearts;2RiverView; Drexel Online Journal.

Awards: Florida Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry; NEA Fellowship in Poetry.

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