TERMINAL BUD, BY MADISON ZEHMER

Boneroots protrude from muddy ground.
I want to bury them.
 
The skylights dance. No coffins for sinners.
Nothing for me but the color of rain
 
and the sea,
always drowning something or someone. 
 
I never had a death wish
 
only something close to it; 
moldfeathers grow on my ankles, anchor me to a ground
 
sick and suffocating. The sky weaves amber out of smoke
and the corpses sing an aubade. 
 
I forget what roses smell like.
 
My lungs cannot flip the switch;
nothing for me but the taste of plumdirt and wishbones.
 

Madison Zehmer is a poet and wannabe historian from North Carolina, with published and forthcoming work in Déraciné Magazine, Drunk Monkeys, Gone Lawn, LandLocked Magazine, Kanstellation Magazine, and elsewhere. She is editor in chief of Mineral Lit Mag and a reader for Lily Poetry Review. Her first chapbook, 'Unhaunting,' will be released by Kelsay Books in 2021.