Garden of Delights

We’ve befriended beetles in the lush landscape
of the drainage ditch, foliage overhead spreading,
shrubs’ rubbery fronds, long-reaching leaves,
sure shelter from thunder. I’ll hide under
the gentle perennial’s petals, red and wrapped
around a powdery pistil. You soak in the cool
waste water that feeds the flowers. Roots
soothe the old soil. My mouth makes the shape
of April. Your corridors are bursting with blooms
and your shadowed rooms have doors
to every echo of springtime. Spiraling
maple seeds reach with willowy hands
to hang your golden organs on the boughs.
I sleep between insects and insist
they shed their resting legs, build a nest
where I can lay a perfect egg the color
of lead. I break the bountiful and you
are strewn across the moss. I bite
your bones and my teeth weep.
We, neither of us, found rest. I rip
the riches from the forest and you
are laid to waste, wreck. and ruin.
This growing garden harms you
so I burn everything beautiful.
Better bleak and blackened,
charred and scarred, than lose you
to some somnolent grove. Give
it the match: it’ll be gone in a flash.