The Test (Or: Desires, Fractured)

A poem

Water Lily Pond, Monet

The knocking wind stirs again
From shelves of air to darkened glen

On greensward floor, a pooling love—
And dovetailed in the golden mud
Foxglove sings a bloody ledge
With deathly calm 'round water's edge.

Stirring feet, an Echo greets
With sunlight's flying time-bound lease;
Fluttering wing slips past a snare
Of Oread teeth, sharpened, bare.

Perhaps some wraith deters my stay
Fallen prey to distant dust
Whose clanging sword, untrusted, fell
Into the sweetened, stagnant well.

Thund'ring plagues face tangled fens;
The dream, dissolved, in ragged shreds.

~~