Cloister of Habits
by Bronwen Tate
All flowers know better what to make of seeds than my body.
Make a safe seclusion of repeated actions. Wake early, walk lightly.
Make a soup for consumptives, trust the wrong roots. Sup on larks’ tongue. Turn glassy eyed, glossy as a worm-eaten apple’s fair side.
Bloom of health, leaking clot. Landscape of days, Dracula and lace.
Misericord. Here again the hawthorn. Sleep another hour, eyes sealed against colored flame.
Some say to name them. I will not.
