by Susan Salgy
I can see you, elbows out, your back
a parenthetic curve, your knees gone slack.
Between the pebbles you expose a deep
moist nest for each paper egg to keep
its first appointment as a flower. You thumb
the loam, you feed the hunger yet to come
a powdered pap of bone meal sifting down
to sweeten the world’s dark meat. To bleach it brown
and bless it for the work ahead — earth’s best
delight: an infant tulip at her breast.
The wind is up, the news is hard, but I
can see that you are planning to survive.
Photo by Lisa Fotios from Pexels
