Windward Review Volume 19 (2021): Empathy and Entropy

Jane Vincent Taylor
Some Things I Know About My Keeper
She knows nothing about orchids
and how we live - nodal, sympodial
how we find a way to bud and flower
in a dry pocket of rhizome roots
My new keeper also lives on the lip
and shape of air, moist and steamy
She sleeps and wakes and sleeps
then spends her small energies
moving me from table to desk
to counter top, to ironing board
She’s decided I do best in east light
and company of birds, the ones
she prays to for blue renewal
and scolds for red wing avarice
In the night I hear her dreaming
of her silken self, her orchid days
Few words pass between us
I say anthur cap and sepal, she says
over a pot of fennel tea, wren
rock dove, shantung maple tree
When she sits with her white page
I do my best to scent the room
Labellum, I suggest, but she says no
that word won’t do, won’t work today
My keeper is an old inflorescine
dictionary, a leathery leaf
Together
we help each other breathe.
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Empathy / Entropy