Holocene Sonnet
i)         The bloom—the pretty part we want—is 
ii)        often how a threatened plant screams help.  
iii)       Venus flytraps can be sedated.   
iv)       Therefore, they can wake & be made calm.   
v)        Lice hatch ravenous for blood & claw 
vi)       linoleum one foot per minute.  
vii)      Mammoth sunflowers reseeded  
viii)     from previous diseased seasons sing  
ix)       the same sickness for generations.   
x)        Pepsis wasps haul tarantulas up  
xi)       mountainsides to provide warm   
xii)      meals for larvae. Imagine children  
xiii)     dragging men across highway lanes 
xiv)     to eat them alive, thigh by thigh. 
Copyright © 2023 by Lisa Fay Coutley. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 21, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
