By Caitlin Ferguson
I intended to spread a layer
of me beneath the mimosa
tree before I burn in the face
of brave plumage that adapts
and laughs at sandy thrusts
like begonias or bougainvillea
but intended is not what makes
it happen. Everything’s knuckled
by the hotwind and my no body,
riddled with enough rain to smear
mud down sandstone, stickies
the goodskin of a peach grown
on borrowed water and too much
light. This may be my private grief,
the color of bruised flesh, soggy
and a little rotten on my tongue.
Caitlin Ferguson is a recent graduate of the Rutgers-Newark Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in DIN Magazine and on the volta.org. Currently, she lives in Las Cruces, NM where she is assembling her first collection of poetry, Girl Messiah.