When my crooked fingers
scrawl their last tick of passion 
lay me in a field of weeds
so every unspoken,
metered word
can seep through tunnels
behind worms,
feeding stalks of yellow clocks.

I’ll work under cover of debris
until the thaw of spring
where I’ll flow like milk
into heads heavy with wishes.

When I no longer wind hearts
to stanzas
my limbs will plant
on the Uncompahgre Plateau,
waiting to stain little fingers green.

Plucked both before
and after I flower
so every poem lodged within me
is chimed out on the breaths
of little boys,
and each verse
I didn’t have the courage to speak
crowns the heads of little girls.

---

Kersea Calhoun is a queer educator and mother, living and teaching in Maine. She holds a B.A. in English from Colorado Mesa University and an M.A. in English from Arizona State University. Her work has been featured in the CMU Literary Review, Velvey Grey, A Portrait of New England, Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature, The Esthetic Apostle, Wailing & Gnashing, and is forthcoming in Beyond Queer Magazine, Quillkeeper’s Press, and Poet’s Choice.