A.J. Huffman and an Ekphrastic Eden

The Hungry Garden

after Nursery  by artist James Lott McCarthy

Barren expanse of green, craves color, seed, becomes canvas
for stars.  The midnight movement chimes, churns.  A rapture
of eruption begins, the constellations consult aurora borealis
before the palette is set.  Apollo acquiesces, the star dance begins.
Soon the sky is a volcano, shooting missiles of light in all directions,
but eventually everything must fall.  And in the center of this latest
Eden, a lone fountain waits to gather.  One star enters, spins
its waters to blue, the next runs them molten gold, blood red follows,
then a rainbow of colors there are no earthly names for.  By dawn,
the four pitchered mouths are exhausted, but surrounded by lavish
buds of the coming Spring.  This rebirth is both blessing and thank you.

The cold stone of the stature settles in for another bountiful year.


A.J. Huffman has published eleven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. Her new full-length poetry collection, Another Blood Jet, is now available from Eldritch Press.  She has another full-length poetry collection, A Few Bullets Short of Home, scheduled for release in Summer 2015, from mgv2>publishing.  She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and has published over 2000 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com