Nature

By Julie Huffman
Copyright 1999 by Julie Huffman

Decaying foxglove oddly petaled
with brown rot smelling sweetly
dead by the side of the road
passed over by highway walkers
and damply withered drooping but
stiff with soggy age ignored by
bees and running over in ants
with white polygons of
brightness like stray flapping
paper torn from a Winnebago
every third petal dangling like
a loose tooth unwilling to leave the head.

Stagnant septic pools ankle deep
in gnats with water that moves
like a cranberry mold thick
and jelly black green sewage
like the insides of an eye with
lazy blue bottle flies droning
like bee-sized low-flying planes
in spiraling circles senseless
and sucked in by the layer
of warm scum stuck to
the surface skin.