Jo Gale

Wild Ginger

The wild ginger’s leaves are
tremored by passing night-time rain.
Or I imagine it so, from miles away.
Or closer. I can’t tell, breathing
here in bed, quiet in the storm.

I imagine myself as this singular plant,
aromatic, rhymed to a parallel scent,
but unlike anything else. My blooms
smell fetid, and I hide them
with my broadening leaves, while
my roots talk to the trees, and speak
in other voices. Like now, like this.