A red snapdragon I
did not plant tumbles
from rough rock soft
rounded lobes offering
themselves to
the rugged world
how readily beauty
dazzles when it does not
care who sees a poem
I think and then
the butcher’s knife drops
from the counter pierces
my bare foot so deeply
so cleanly cleaving
the flesh as if it too
were meat
an offering to
the depthless hunger
of the living a poem
I think but then
the blood its red
rounded lobes seeking
the ocean from which
it came how holy
the longing of blood a poem
I think and then
it clots colludes
in its own
containment
and perhaps love
is domestication
a willingness to be
constrained now
there’s a poem
I think and one day
such beauty
loosed into
the rugged world
tumbling
and dazzling not
caring who sees but
right now
a Band-Aid
This piece first appeared two years ago. A few stitches and a few weeks later, the foot
was mostly healed, and the poet more mindful of corporeal hazards.
Meditatio Ephemera 