by Adriana Ugarte
Little Haw
The stone who skips my shore is bored,
gone shipwrecked on a shard of glass,
unhinged by its singular ping!
But an ample gust prompts flux,
it descends into the blubbing mouth
of pylodictis olivaris, who burps
a bubble that swells in succession,
converges & resumes again
somewhere above the surface.
Middle Haw
what there is:
Torenia fournieri; wishbone flower, box opened to reveal yellow tongue
Gaillardia aristata; blanket flower, ovary envious of petal’s gradient
Crinum americanum; swamp lily, seven sisters with tumid pistils
what there isn’t:
Anguilla rostrata; pencil eel, blind and empty-stomached, Sargasso-bound
Athene cunicularia; burrowing owl, diurnal, eyes circumducting air
Pleurobema pyriforme; oval pigtoe, opalescent innards visible via fissure
what is broken: what is hidden: what will never be:
hipbone sock, stained sickle
window wrapper, sun-bleached saw
shoelace lizard, de-composing vertebrae
Old Haw
Dear visitor,
How is it that you come to sound,
and wrap your lips around Sisyphus, or
sassafras sprouting wild beneath the door?
Water speaks commonly, yet,
we are seldom understood.