Sharon Lasitter

Warm healer’s hands on brown bottles,
Move across flower essence
Move across acrid flow

Lucid eyes gaze along my dark companion
Gaze along my nest of spine
Cranked up dowser in my palm.

Shrouded disease grips his boney fist
The liver is shrill and poison
Could this be me, the child who wept for love?

Pink Azalea harvested for my mother’s madness,
I picked these; Tea Color Rose for my loneliness, Crown of Thorns for my ruptured heart
A dropper delivers the elixir; it swims to my veins.

How many currents on stones will it take
How many needles tapped into my flesh,
How many crushed blossoms until the deal is broken?