Love-in-a-Mist

by Bailey Willes

 

 

On a cliff side there’s a poppyseed pile

of ants sputtering against the pavement,

overlooking the highway with its tangle of overpass,

and there’s a sweet smell of summerwine

from bush grass and cat tails half filled in.

Your liver’s out, Prometheus, eaten but

not getting any smaller,

disappearing except for a little stain behind the ears:

sulfur yellow that we both know is pollen

from the fennel flower you hid that fire in,

a cloth of gold to cover up your misplaced

anthropocenic adoration.

Always bashful, weren’t you?

But that liver, dangling out of you

like a loose tooth

I gotta ask honey-sap

was it worth it?

 





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