Hover
the imagined center, our tongues
grew long to please it, licking
the walls, a chamber built of scent,
a moment followed by a lesser moment
& a hunger to return. It couldn't last. Resin
flowed glacially from wounds in the bark
pinned us in our entering
as the orchids opened wider. First,
liquid, so we swam until we couldn't.
Then it felt like sleep, the taste of nectar
still inside us. Sometimes a flower
became submerged with us. A million years
went by. A hundred. Swarm of hoverflies,
cockroach, assassin bug, all
trapped, suspended
in that moment of fullness,
a Pompeii, the mother
covering her child's head forever.
