Summers unfurl razor leaves,
tiny fingers grasping soil.
Stomata, open like punctures
in a time card, convert light
to sugar, netted in a loop of hunger
and thirst, thousands of mouths
pulsing to the sun. Orbs of water
escape from silica and loam, loss
shivering strings of light, a web
we cannot sift through,
break apart. From space,
Iowa glows like a rash,
the hot pink of a star
rippling before its collapse.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 18, Issue 3.
Samantha Leigh Futhey received her M.F.A. in the Creative Writing and Environment program at Iowa State University. She has poetry published or forthcoming in RHINO Poetry, Rust +Moth, Superstition Review, and The Fourth River.
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