EMELIE GRIFFIN

Anthropocene Botanic

Even now, hypnotized
blooms hinge

open like our knees
in unfelt dark.

Hold their width
against space

as day advances, climbing
with its heat

all over everything.
I ask, what is all over

the ground here, that glistens
from beneath

the punctured earth.
You say it is the eyes

of small creatures, aching
for their mates

who could be close. Let
enter your mind the white

clay bank,
the dripping watermelon,

unlaced shoes empty
on the rock.

The sounds of dogs getting after
coyotes at night,

their men on foot behind,
to find, to see into the wet

eyes of, but not even to kill,
how the coyote, cornered,

lies down and looks back,
then looks away.

We have been satisfied plenty,
it isn’t that.

Emelie Griffin comes from the Florida panhandle, and is a poetry candidate in Syracuse University’s MFA program.