The Earth's Love

I held on all year long
but your thorns stayed thorns.
No amount of gentle touches
stopped my sand from slipping
through your serpentine roots.

No amount of rain brought
morning flowers. Only waxy hooks
jabbed out in pain, studded down
the stem’s cells. You kept your jade oasis
firm until the morning frost began to burn.
Then green fingers sopping, decades of petals
swelled, you bit hard on my dry tongue.

You tasted desert, I tasted rose. And as the well
of your mouth filled with scarab shells, my hot
breath blew, shimmering, across a loveless earth.


John G.Hall©2004