Zachary Dankert
Image by Jürgen from Pixabay
Zachary Dankert is an aspiring creator from Indianapolis who tries to read serious literature but really just wants to read fantasy stories about mice. His published work can be found in The Fourth River, Breakbread Literary Magazine, and Tofu Ink Arts Press, among others.
Love Expressed as a Seed
Garden darkly compounded shot through
with window-shutter light I found in
an old botany textbook that someone
who is herbaceous will die upon
the ground but, by then, I had
already sucked down dry the cut
ting and was waiting for this
body to stimulate, come green
and reap Here ambient warmth
is right for growth, soil filtered
in sweat of nutrient limbs petal
toes percolated sighs My roots didn’t
know how to drink pockets of regret
rhizo me deep under skin Someone
slips fibrous bulbs between my
lips I press them shut so the sun
can not draw anise from throat
Body graft ed onto another I didn’t
want this stigma not Here salt of
the Earth DNA altered by my
repent ence Loam was a lewd tonic
on my tongue but each swallow less on
my con science to be come green is to
swal low I drink sin fulls of sun
light Here this strain of disease
perhaps crossed in a garden perhaps
hybrid ized by monks who see
the Word in every blight Cells split
and sow divide mustard seed turns to
temple traits of dominance perhaps but
centuries pass waiting for sun to cultivate
shame from my teeth It will not Out
of fertile Eden ribs, oranges and Rose
mary grow here Thornless bower, wax
wings plucking elderberries before
swelling too large dropping to the dirt
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