TENNESSEE, 103 DEGREES
Between showers and it’s so still
The leaves are like breaths
Soldiers hold
The rain has bequeathed
Its baubles to the woods
Old jewels the only granddaughter
Didn’t even want but so much
As touch one
And it disappears
The only moving thing
Amidst all these things
That move me
Are the butterflies
They’re the afterlives
Of spring flowers
Boys beheaded
If beauty is this fragile
Give me death
At least
I don’t have to worry about death
Dying
I think of the exiled novelist
Who lusted after them
Netting and gassing them
Pushing bright pins
Into their black bodies
Under glass now
They’re obsolete
Like those old maps that say
Beyond a cartoonish mountain range
“Here Be Dragons”
Between showers and it’s so still
The leaves are like breaths
Soldiers hold
The rain has bequeathed
Its baubles to the woods
Old jewels the only granddaughter
Didn’t even want but so much
As touch one
And it disappears
The only moving thing
Amidst all these things
That move me
Are the butterflies
They’re the afterlives
Of spring flowers
Boys beheaded
If beauty is this fragile
Give me death
At least
I don’t have to worry about death
Dying
I think of the exiled novelist
Who lusted after them
Netting and gassing them
Pushing bright pins
Into their black bodies
Under glass now
They’re obsolete
Like those old maps that say
Beyond a cartoonish mountain range
“Here Be Dragons”