Stung
It isn't summer yet. The hot aroma
that the grass breathes says it is; the grass
is gold, its shadows green. I know the clover as Eurydice
would have known it, had things turned out differently.
What waits in its cool perfumed depths
that can accept a foot so lovingly, that learn
so easily the instep's curve, the knobs
of ankle and of toe, is something venomous.
Each step invites that poisoned shimmer,
and the end, all broken, this world lost.
For me it's always been a smaller creature, a brief
curl of yellow, stubby-winged. The sexual
stab of her serpent, its glossed coils,
is too romantic - like another lover, though still awful.
Save for me the small sting, the chaste
sob, the little violet swell - and let
the creature die of it, his guts
ripped from him in the force of stinging. Let him take
no pleasure in it; let me fall
in no dewy swoon. Do I require tenderness? A crutch,
a shoulder? I could have used the frantic strumming of a lyre
some grief that, ever after,
I must navigate the meadows with a chilled deliberation.
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