POEM · HUNGER AND LABOR
The lilies are not floating. Each is tethered to mud by a green cord. The bee does not wander through the purple. It climbs— rung by rung by rung— entering each small bell, its whole gold body severe with need. Above them, the sky passes over black water, the only thing here without a root or hunger. Call nothing beautiful until you have seen the exacting labor that keeps it alive.