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?