Lily
John Baylis Post

Stony petals fingertip-folded
in false prayer;

the spearhead bloom
threatens like a klansman’s hood.

Stamen, style, or wand within:
uvular, phallic, the deceiver,

magical, fecund, pollinate,
exogamous, alien, faithless,

all toxic bar the scent
overlying the lies.

She loves me, she loves me not,
plucking the fragments from me:

flesh petals fingertip-crushed
into despair.