I read today’s poem in the December 2009 issue of Poetry and it stuck with me, but its stickiness is not why I picked it. It was chosen because when I looked up its writer, Jill Alexander Essbaum, to learn more about who crafted this delightful nugget, the first thing to come up was a Wikipedia article describing her as “a Christian erotic poet,” and I thought that was just about the greatest distinction I’d ever encountered.
Poem A clementine Of inclement climate Grows tart. A crocus Too stoic to open, Won’t. Like an oyster That cloisters a spoil of pearls, Untouched— The heart that’s had Enough Stays shut.
