Hyacinth Girl
From her mouth flow apple seeds &
hyacinth blossoms. Her long legs bow
when she climbs, maniacal—
to the treetops. To us, she is so
much longer up there. We fear her
rough fall and we beg her to return.
And she slinks down to earth
from her treetop, past cups of sweet tea
made from hyacinth leaves. She stops—
pressing her palms into the cool earth.
Her long fingers dig down.
Fingers that once fashioned clouds
to discs, words to poems, and pointed
us toward heaven. Her hands are shovels
that dig her way past normal into
the earth. Beneath us, she cannot feel
her fingers. She cuts them off, mantles
them under a tree’s roots. Her lungs fill
with chestnuts and autumn. We follow
handprints she left behind, deep
depressions of palms into soil. We beg
her to return, call her name in earth-colored
whispers. She calls back & with each breath
a hyacinth blooms beneath our feet.