I am two:thirty heat lightning.
Inconquerable flashes of my elemental fury
leap from grumbling cloud to dewy earth,
dancing naked under a smoky moon. I am a burning
offering to the sodium lamp sentinels looming golden
over black tar; there is tobacco sown
into my every pore. I am the underestimated
weight of fog rolling off the meadow's swollen calf
river, the heavy lowing of labor pains, the thick
croak of the year's last bullfrog. I am the first
crunch of dying light, the gray tinge of wood smoke
on chlorophyll burned red. The sting of my icy breath
creeps into sleeping eyelids, through every crack
in waterlogged armor. My frosty four o'clock
is no place for strangers. The frozen silence
does not know my strength. I will bend the world
with feet of glass. In time, the weight will break
my own limbs, expose their green, soft meat.
I am the green shoots of daffodils sharp,
triumphantly cleaving the rested dirt. There is yellow
warpaint across my forehead, a crown of blistering elegance
glazed by wings of stubborn three:thirty ice. I am resilient
and eternal—perennial—blooming to a cold, white moon.
you will never break my spirit, world.