The Stunted Loveliness

          The Stunted Loveliness

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

My body was the shallow pot of earth

For you to use to make your bonsai in.  My soul

Was waiting, though.  To start this gnarled birth

You settled rootlets on me, to cajole

Them into dirt.  You did this with your hair

At first more beautiful in grip.  It seized

The soil, the curls insisting they not spare

My willingness.  This hair, these roots then squeezed

More deeply into me.  The tree became

A triumph I could not resist.  It swelled

And both of us because of righteous shame

Resisted, but necessity compelled.

  Your rootlings soon pushed up your stunted limbs.

    Right pruned.  Lust has its own insistent whims.

~ Phillip Whidden

by phillipw | Aug 1, 2024 | LO, RO | 0 comments