CHANDLER, CATHERINE

HEAL-ALL

 

Bring me a blossom of heal-all

and I’ll make a warm poultice with spit;

     if you’re bruised, burnt or cut

     or been kicked in the butt,

you’ll be cured, and it won’t hurt a bit.

 

Bring me a bucket of heal-all

and I’ll boil a medicinal brew;

     then after one sip

     your every guilt trip

will depart without hullabaloo.

 

Bring me a basket of heal-all

and I’ll dry it and grind it to dust;

     wherever I sprinkle,

     each wobble and wrinkle

will vanish and leave you robust.

 

Bring me a barn loft of heal-all

and up with my heartbreak I’ll climb;

     I won’t drink it or eat it

     because, though I need it,

my wounds want the heal-all of time.

 

Catherine Chandler is the author of Lines of Flight (Able Muse Press) shortlisted for the Poets’ Prize, Glad and Sorry Seasons (Biblioasis Press) nominated for the A.M. Klein Prize, This Sweet Order (White Violet Press) a book of sonnets, and two chapbooks, For No Good Reason and All or Nothing. Among other awards, she is the winner of the 2010 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award (and a finalist on five other occasions), the Leslie Mellichamp Prize, The Lyric Quarterly Prize, twice finalist for the Able Muse Write Prize (Poetry), and a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Her poems, translations, essays, reviews and podcasts have been widely published in print and online throughout the English-speaking world. She invites everyone to visit her poetry blog, The Wonderful Boat, at http://www.cathychandler.blogspot.com.