Awakening
The
Poppies
Slept
Past
Their
Alarm
Only to be
Jolted
Awake
By
Impatient
Daisies.
The Past
Take it and tell me
How it feels.
Trace the irregular knobs of its spindly vertabrae,
Prick yourself on its quills and watch
The Quivering dome of the bead of blood,
Blood like a bead on your fingertip.
Put your tongue to its
Chocolate curves, test its dryness,
Texture, acidity — how long does its flavor
Last before it dies? Does it stick
To the roof of your mouth, get lodged in
Your teeth? Take it up,
Measure its weight in your palm,
Eyeball it —
Do you see a rose, a fetus,
a death, a psalm
A mint on your pillow,
Or a globe
Cracked through to its core
Magmatic, bare?
The Laurel Grove
The stars spill out, drops of
Blue milk on fingertips,
Slow lustrous silken streams
Dripping chemical pearl on the
Ferns and fens. Like drops of salt,
They ooze into the grain of
Trees, alive and fizzing;
They bubble and foam in hoards
When they touch the ground.
Every pinprick drop of crystallized blood
Of floral snot of grief of tea of liquid gem
Shapes a Fortress of Leaves
Above my head,
A canopy of Victory in
A forest all my own.
Now the vanilla moss sprouts where I tread,
Lush and viridescent as rivers
And the Light only falls
Where I tell it to,
Sonorous and free.