Incongruity

Milfoil — a thousand blades
come fresh from sleep —
on the tongue, this word
invasive as the howls
of a thousand bent dogs
neckbraced in a creekbed.

Unbroken and mellifluous
you come to me as a lover’s
long lament down a mountain
side. Unbroken and mellifluous
you come to me as the scalp—
torn grief of a widow’s wail.

Milfoil — what in a word
compels such anguish
that I may regard this
burgeoning day with a trepid
pulse that somewhere, somewhere
in this mangled echo

Hacked smooth on my lips
lay the bones of a dream
one thousand thick, trenched
on the steppe of some soft madness.

Image: Olli Kilpi on Unsplash