I was born with sticky nectar
in my eyes, bound to love the first

thing I saw. Rose-colored film, glory-
filtered. Now I scrub poison residue

from my lids, perceive the thumbprint
crush of these deceivers: Oberon

and his goatfoot, Puck. How thick
mortality tastes, how heavy, a sulphurous

molasses on the tongue. I’m humbled
pupil to humus, study how to churn

rot. What words, what bonemeal
must I knead into soil? What spell

to untangle a thirty-three years’ knot,
or render the barren, bearable?

Purge this mortal grossness! I want
the innocent Oberon stole, tiny saint

bereft of mother. To find my bairn, I’ll girdle
the earth, turn over every stubblefield,

split wide each tree belly’s prison.

Dayna Patterson

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Dayna Patterson is a consulting editor for Bellingham Review, poetry editor for Exponent II Magazine, and founding editor-in-chief of Psaltery & Lyre. She is a co-editor of Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry (Peculiar Pages Press 2018). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, The American Journal of Poetry, Hotel Amerika, So to Speak, Sugar House Review, Western Humanities Review, and others. www.daynapatterson.com

Artwork: Annie Stegg, The Faerie Queen
Website: http://anniestegg.com/

30 Sep This entry was published on September 30, 2018 at 12:10 am and is filed under 32 (September 2018), Archive, Poetry. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.