wilting

part i

Am I Daphne,


the prey that flees the shrike,

fingers to thorns


and limbs to boughs,


so when in the throes


of others’ scorn,


none can strike


(hard enough to hurt)


this marble tree?

Or

Akin to Persephone,


arms of rotting asphodels


fangs stained red, resigned to roles


of fate and folklore. All she knows


are spindly jonquils — a garden that grows

in vipers’ jaws and on Hadean coals


as she sleeps with a fawn’s skull


and the flowers are guillotined.

part ii

You surround me like liquid light

in glass familiar with the outside:

Fists, footfall, fondness, flotsam

flies, fury, eyes, blurry

behind my foliage and frames


Not one to know of close cascades


that turn a house of green to all


heliotropes, hydrangeas, gardenias

blossoming purples, pinks, and whites


For you, Hyacinthus, they grow and glow

though, erysimum, hiding in petals


and leaves like I, you’d never know.


For you, I’ll strike and scrape and pry


at the panels of this vase


‘til the reds in my tall fingers fly


How could I keep you to myself —


Skin like spring


Samson’s hair


Lips that bud


The cores of stars


in his coarse hands


boyish, beautiful, brilliant —


when you were never mine to love?


Yet, here we lie, notes of a nocturne

beneath the crust of the earth


where we see mirrors and rainbows

through panes doused and drowning in dew

and sun-bound strangers, how they stroll

above our bodies; our bodies.

by Indigo Jay