Starve the bloodless peach
seduce salt, deliver the dead
cringe back from our dark
harvest blighted pain
or harrow it into sickened humus
and wait until next year
to scythe the wilted weeds.
Wasted unwashed sludge
wet wine whilst vinegar cleans
fish hook pull the ulcerous rinds
staunch the canker, flinch from fester
watch the wild cardinals raise the righted plinth
eat the blueberry by the lake.
The bald, burned and bound
snow angel in dirt, dust done;
the poisoned cast out
snoring bears sleep beneath snows
the wounded whistling
ours, all ours.
Bill has been a Hyla Brook Poet since 2018. Bill has been published in Aerial Review, Shot Glass Journal, The Poets Touchstone and Metonym Journal. Bill works in the technology field and lives with his wife and son in southern New Hampshire.