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Brushwork

He wet the paper to start,
applied the yellow green wash
of a New Jersey summer.

Wet on wet for zinnia and cleome,
burnt umber and cadmium orange—
a border for the vegetable garden

where he painted mammoth zucchini for me
to discover, golden raspberries amidst the red,
green beans fresh off the vine.

He used a fan brush for the feathery dill
I leafed through for caterpillars—
anise smell on my fingers for hours.

With the tiniest brush, he striped
the

.

—
Caroline N. Simpson’s chapbook, Choose Your Own Adventures and Other Poems, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018. In 2020, Delaware Division of Arts awarded Caroline an Established Artist Fellowship in Poetry, and she has been nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize in both poetry and nonfiction. She teaches high school English at the Wilmington Friends School in Wilmington, DE.

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