James Davis May

James David May wrote Unquiet Things, which was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2016 and named runner-up for the Georgia Author of the Year Award in poetry. In 2016, his poem “Ed Smith” won the Poetry Society of America’s Cecil Hemley Award. He is Writer-in-Residence at Mercer University. He is married to poet Chelsea Rathburn.

And, moonflowers are related to morning glorys!  Except they open to the moon. They open from late afternoon and through the night. 

Moonflowers

Tonight at dusk we linger by the fence

around the garden, watching the wound husks

of moonflowers unclench themselves slowly,

almost too slow for us to see their moving—

you notice only when you look away

and back, until the bloom decides,

or seems to decide, the tease is over,

and throws its petals backward like a sail

in wind, a suddenness about this as though

it screams, almost the way a newborn screams

at pain and want and cold, and I still hear

that cry in the shout across the garden

to say another flower is about to break.

I go to where my daughter stands, flowers

strung along the vine like Christmas lights,

one not yet lit. We praise the world by making

others see what we see. So now she points and feels

what must be pride when the bloom unlocks itself

from itself. And then she turns to look at me.

— James Davis May