A retired college administrator and teacher of writing, Leone volunteers in the public schools of Worcester, MA., paints, and now has more time to write. Her poems have been published in Negative Capability, The Issue, and Common Ground Review.  Poems are forthcoming in On the Page and The Worcester Review. Leone may be contacted by e-mail at: scanlonl@rcn.com.

Wild Garden

Dancer who runs to work and home
to husband, dogs, cats,
a mother who's disappearing, in the night
screams and in the day creates a garden,
no borders, blossoms float
six feet above the tangle
pink and violet phlox, orange butterfly weed,
silk-white Stargazer lilies crimson-spotted like salamanders,
color washing against spruce and hemlock,
air vibrant with finches' wings and sometimes
a snake's rattle--fierce, fecund energy,
dances springing from the wild.

"Maxis Review," Spring 2002