Flower Map by Deborah Leipziger

  Flower Map

by Deborah Leipziger

© 2013 Deborah Leipziger

Finishing Line Press

Georgetown KY

ISBN  978-1-62229-321-6

Softbound, $14, 25 pages

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Flower Map simply put is about love—these are love poems and they are sexy, sensual, exciting. Take for example Sueῇo

I sleep inside your sleep

Your touch in my touch

Your hand resting on my side

Guitar curve of my body

In the night you whisper

“It’s like an exotic island”

The moon reclining into the night

Your sweat in my pores

I dream inside your dream

Awake inside your morning

Don’t you long to be the other half of this poem?  Can’t you imagine yourself in the dream?  Ms. Leipziger has a way with her romances as Awaken informs us:

Your body presses against my back

arousing me awake

touching through the golden silk sheath

that falls all around me

Morning hovers over us

like a blanket

You cover me completely—

how you come crashing into me,

each time a new ocean

Your breath bites on my clavicle

Your pulse in mine

Brazilian born she has lived in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands which adds to her distinct imaging.

This book is also about loving her children.

Morning

My little daughter next to me,

her profile luminous

like a painting.

Her skin is like the morning,

warm and softly lit,

not alabaster

like her sister’s,

but golden peach.

Her face is a geography of the places I love,

of everything I know.

I am an admirer of Deborah Leipziger’s poetry for two reasons: first the sheer beauty of her poems and second the ability to make love seem like more than mere physicality, more than base emotion.  When I edited Bagel Bards Anthology 7 hers was the lead poem. 

Finally, the last poem in Flower Map is about making bread, challah to be specific and

it is a metaphor for so many things: poetry, relationships, love, life and family.

Here are some lines from How to make challah which provides insight into her wonderful talent.

Make a well./A deep well to contain the grief./Pour the yeast water into the well./Let it seep in./Add 3 eggs and 3 tablespoons of oil./Take off your rings.

Read the rest of this poem in her book. Read all the poems.  Pick a quiet place where you

will not be disturbed. Turn off the phone. You will want to concentrate and ruminate. Enjoy.

_____________________________________________________

Zvi A. Sesling

Author, King of the Jungle and Across Stones of Bad Dreams

Editor, Muddy River Poetry Review

Editor, Bagel Bards Anthology 7

Editor, Bagel Bards Anthology 8