Waxes and Wanes

Sydney Holley

We would weep together on days like these,

almost seventy degrees. Not quite.

The natural light wholesome and nutritive

as if we resided in the Sunshine

State instead of Western Pennsylvania

A never ending anecdote of rusted bridges,

abandoned farmlands, an opioid crisis

Our own inherent War on Drugs- you and I

in a field blooming with dandelions and

snapdragons surrounded by 3 foot-tall yellow

sweet clover. I was amazed at the chlorophyll

filling the veins of the greens, walking overtop

either ragweed or crabgrass- who knows.

Trying to moderate the weightlessness in your

legs, you described these waxes and wanes

as lemony, meaty: something out of a cosmic

dust left at the very bottom of a neglected milky

way complex. That’s how I thought of us once

when we were at my mother’s house boxed

inside sickly scarlett walls, cawed at by birds

through a fog of cobwebs and allergens filming

an opulence of porcelain knick knacks. It smelled

like apple candle wax the first time but never

again after that. Just black licorice and rot, sassafras

sliced at the root and molded carefully into a bittersweet

sap. We will never stop gnawing on these

dried up roots. Chomping and chewing, parachuting.

The cawing continues because it must