Published online with Dewdrop, 2020
The waxy paper spouts
of the sacred thorn-apples in the glen
had fuzz-covered stalks the color of a frog’s underbelly
without any thorns at all.
There were no apples, either
to better that foul-smelling bush
that made no appearance in the tanglings of the vestibule garden
of the lonely Saint Francis.
At eleven, it seemed all Michigan green
had lied to me in this bold-faced way-
The black-eyed susans, ubiquitous squatters at the asphalt’s edge,
were eye-less waifs of gold.
Even the animals were fabulists.
I learned this with my cask of skin
sprawled face down on a turbid bed of stinking channel-waste
staring at the sunfish.
Holly Eva Allen 