
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.