Cactus Your body can’t be touched except by special birds and spiders. Your thirst is quenched by fog because there is no rain for you. You’re stuck in desiccated ground, all the worst dry places. Cracked earth pulls away in patterns triggering trypophobia. Your army-green conceals a crown of thorns, face full of needles. Even your roots are spiny. Self-pity for my prickly past. I horde what I receive, conceal the moisture under olive-drab, defend with thorns and barbs and threats and self-deceptive dryness. Spears punctuate the lines, the curves of plumpness. We keep our distance even from each other. Succulent specimens, we pretend drought. At night, the cold surprises. Orange cools to blue, and white to silver. Mice and eight-legged creatures sip what droplets I can spare, what may seep out to glisten in the starlight, stain the sand.
Wren Donovan Published in Fahmidan Journal Issue 15, May 2023