Trumpet Vine
Forty or so years ago
my mother took a sprig
of trumpet creeper
from the old plant
in my great grandmother’s yard
now she brings a piece to us
swaddled in wet newspaper
tells us it will grow and climb
and produce exquisite orange
horn-shaped flowers
but it hasn’t
not in at least 25 years
the vine is green and lush
but there are no flowers
and it doesn’t climb
it crawls along the ground
away from the trellis
and out to where the sun rises and sets
on the wild countryside
Maybe next year, my mother says
Maybe next year it will scale the trellis
bring out its trumpets
and as if it had been doing it forever
and fill the air with silent orange music
John L. Stanizzi: 14 collections-Sleepwalking, Chants, others. Besides Passionfruit, he’s in Prairie Schooner, Rattle, others. Nonfiction – Stone Coast, Metaworker others. Former Wesleyan Etherington Scholar, Poet-in-Residence/Manchester Community College. 2021, Connecticut Fellowship/Creative Writing – Non-Fiction-Connecticut Office of Arts. The piece – “Pants,” named by Potato Soup Journal, Best of 2022.