into the quiet soul of soil
where to the rage of earthworms
you ghost and decompose with eyes open
will fill from throat to thirst a geography of
wild aldehyde that heaven swells to meet and
kindle this dizzy electron named earth
will engulf you like a peach pit and rid your
varicose heart of all its pathways but one
will make you forget about God and guzzle like
wine every myth you were told was fire
will return everything you ever gave away
will circumscribe every joyful memory
each fevered prayer into a bushy froth where
like a half submerged toad you float
eyes closed in the blooming rhapsody of lilacs.
Roxanne Nickolie has published one chapbook entitled Judge Harder: A Poetic Commentary on Multiculturalism in Milwaukee. She is originally from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and has a soft place in her heart for both Persian poetry and the Southern grotesque.
D. DeGraw
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