Necropastoral
Dusk, & I’m back in the field I dreamed of
setting ablaze that summer ash sugared
every windshield. Back then, I was all mayhem
of hair, another t-shirt’s frayed hem. I was the fly
in the jar, relentless with energy. Years later
& I’m having trouble living. What little there is
to hold onto: chronic cricketsounds, mouthshape
violeting my collarbone. Coolness
of trampled weeds, gnats throwing their bodies
against the golden hour. & as spring honeysuckles
into summer, I don’t know what to do
with the strange animal this year made
of me. Once, I was all bark & all bite. Now,
I’m tired of being brave, tired
of spending hours trying to figure out
how to make a metaphor lossless, lying in grass
so long that even the shadows leave me.
Despy Boutris’s work has been published in Copper Nickel, Guernica, Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, Agni, American Poetry Review, Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere. She lives in California.
Header photo by kay, courtesy Pixabay.
