"asphodel"

 “asphodel”

i.

skin of leather-

fingered leaves, curling up and eager, shaded by the tongue-

pink blossoms licking

 

sunwhite beams:

 

you gulp at them, a wine-

short panting, gone before

the summer – the sun will not

deny you.

 

your dust-

halo hair of stamens, the rouge-

dark sea drawing bees:

 

            bridegrooms lapping

            the life up, your bruise-

            purple heart out-

            beating their blood

            in a steady rhythm: hunger –

thirst – abeyance – need –

 

this is love, alive: clothing you

with ache, staining

and filling and bursting, succumbing 

and panting and waning –

 

this is life, a love: your mouth agape, the savage roots’

short thrusting, the bony spine

in the dirt,

 

your palm-

tender face 

expectant

 

 

ii.

 

the river-

bed languors, surrendering its lees to the dry

brown brush. the brush

decays

 

and grows in half-lives 

like an isotope.

 

in the valley of willow

tree singed by heat:

 

the asphodel’s dusty meat.

 

 

iii.

 

stained white petals crumble, dry on a ledge

in the kitchen: silt-

blossomed stamen bone, fossil-

hard skin of a thousand years buried:

 

asphodel,

i remember: your dirt-

weary pose, the dust-

stiff strength

of longing, your pock-

stretched arms

of need:

 

long ago the bees stopped seeking you – the bees betray

your flower neck. i taste the neck

and the nectar within, i taste

the stem and the nectar in it, i

drink the stamen-liquid lost

in the dirt