Jicama

Unmolested by the winds and the
sun
they’ll spend the summer-
time in a brown house
resting with the sweet heft
of a promise
beneath the beautiful
good soil

turning
a raw veneer
into
riches of the interior—

hills of starch
of living cubes of water
tasting slightly sweet
crisp white at the core.

Cento Sources: Tato Laviera, William Brewer, Joshua Beckman, Mark Halliday, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Alison Stone, Verne Bright, Wendy Rose, Ray DiPalma, John Allman, D. Nurkse, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Ed Roberson, Benjamin Goodney, Craig Arnold

Butter Lettuce

Strange splendor
of softness
with leafy
folds, tucks
arabesques of stem and leaf circling
round
like a silk ribbon
like
brain coral
with their heads
containing and concealing
something beautiful
sweet and cool. I almost
imagine
their bodies
are green
patterns of light
joining and separating
like
petals
of
a rose.

How
do we
eat
sheer
beauty?

Cento Sources: Ernest Hartsock, Noah Warren, Rae Armantrout, Joanie Mackowski, Lee Ann Roripaugh, James Hoch, Luljeta Lleshanaku, Ben Fama, Rosamond S. King, Suzanne Noguere, Pansy Mauer-Alvarez, Mike Bove, Ron Silliman, Jennifer Richter, David Wagoner, Ed Roberson, Philip Whalen, Carl Adamshick, J. D. McIntyre, Lila Rich, Paul Muldoon, Zubair Ahmed, Reg Saner, David Tomas Martinez, Cathy Song, John Wilkinson, Louis Untermeyer

Patrice Boyer Claeys authored four poetry collections, most recently This Hard Business of Living (with Gail Goepfert). Her work appears in Tupelo Quarterly, NELLE, North Dakota Quarterly, Lily Poetry Review, and Blue Earth Review. Nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net, she can be found at www.patriceboyerclaeys.com.