If the act of beginning bent the knee,
salt would not care to know
where its taste began; the way pine digs
in the brain and pulls out wet moss,
a hot flush of shame from a smell
from a memory from a moment before,
the emphasis on things past yes but not
moved recently, not things of soft
and bright honeyed clover but things of pinned
wriggling moths dying on a Styrofoam mat,
labeled with sharpie (which smells like
decay) and mother said you were always
such a pretty girl, why couldn’t you smile more?
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 17, Issue 4.
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