Bonfire
I knew I loved you in the bushes,
whispering don’t wake the chicks
their eggs, their mothers
afterwards you lifted me onto shoulders
pressing doorbells, begging for champagne
we love each other with berry twigs, stems
of my eyes twisting together, vision blurred
I left wine bottles somewhere in your backyard
glass blooms into blushing mushrooms and
confetti ashes. when you left I dragged my body
through cauliflower fields, burning green heads, no
longer a steady stem of body, I am melted wax in
male green jars, my hair a fan of starved tentacles. I miss
you, but I’m floating across the field like a dream.

Sam Moe is the recipient of a 2023 St. Joe Community Foundation Poetry Fellowship from Longleaf Writers Conference. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Whale Road Review, The Indianapolis Review, Sundog Lit, and others. Her poetry book Heart Weeds is out from Alien Buddha Press (Sept. ’22) and her chapbook Grief Birds is out from Bullshit Lit (Apr. ’23). Her full-length Cicatrizing the Daughters is forthcoming from FlowerSong Press.