goldenrod dreams of dew point blazing

Caitlin Roach

—there were hundreds of them

—from above, a sea
            of slick whips whorling burned
     and in their burning became
                      softer versions of themselves

—like it had been wicked

—looked nothing like the field of goldenrod
            from that September the cancer was growing
and we didn’t know it,
                     the droopy thrash of its messy yellows
                                 that dripped, that leaked
                their nectar but kept their seeds close

            —the bees swarmed it

            —nothing like the spiked ice fields, the lucky parts
                                   the sun didn’t target
                   even in their orienting to it

—(how densely their rusty throats hovered there
            and stained)

—the charred snags, the whole forest that carried on
            on the mesa we winded through,
                                  we must’ve been dreaming

—that oil would have kept on burning

            —I wander through the halls of this dark house
                       calling and calling for you but am nothing more
                than a face afloat without a mouth.