White Poppy
Untraceable, in the clear at last,
walk midnight up Biblical Hill,
past the crosses, the dead saints.
No one’s coming, I can be one
and more than one—
Needing light, my spine
leans, my head nods, my serrate leaves—
taproot, in love with the drip system, digs in.
Last night, during the change, rabbits,
quiet non-verbals.
Morning, bright inflorescense
stems origin—coming from a long line
I now present as a gateway drug.
Of course, some will doubt the schools,
dates, the degrees I hold, my greens,
openings here and there to let the art breathe.
Friends, strangers, everyone wants me,
my children—blue-black seeds
rain on the desert floor.
Who will throw a line over the back garden gate?
If only they could play with patience.
When my petals fall, gather around.
Diana
Diana from the waist
up against a black sky
made white by her
moon-spun, the flick of
a wrist, the night wheel
cuts a new smile on her face
Her teeth clamp down on
the leashes, her devil dogs
pull hard as they can, Diana,
the bitches dancing against
the beat of the night
Feeding time, sisters
She lifts her bow, notches
the barbed arrow, draws
it back
Pain, white
fire she braids
into our hair each morning,
brushing out sparks at night
Nils Nelson
A graduate of the master’s program at Cal State Fresno, where he studied with Phil Levine and Peter Everwine, Nils Nelson has had poetry in Seneca Review, Ironwood, Crazyhorse, Partisan Review, Quarterly West and other usual suspects, with recent poems in PERVERSE and Second Chance Lit. A winner of the Bermuda Triangle Prize at The Poet’s Billow, Nils is an avid golfer and award-winning golf writer and editor for many national golf magazines. He’s finishing a full-length poetry manuscript in Tucson, where he burns through sunscreen.
Header image by Krystle van der Salm.
