Dye

by Suphil Lee Park

 

In a menstrual cycle of balsamines
doubt revisits me.
The way it congealed
into the deer’s face, eyes punctured
open by saber-toothed dread.
The balsam petal
paste on my fingernails
ages red as ruptured mouths.
There goes the green tail of August.
There goes, pollinated air.
There goes the scythe
of my mind straight into
cornstalks the height of the past.
My kitchen floor remembered the deer
shoulder you’d brought home
for three deaths in the family.
The meat, heft of gore and fur,
which my hands now seem
to have tusked through.
There goes the sun
unable to contain itself.
What kind of fear gave eyes
to the bat, only to blind.
What gave the spider four pairs.
The cornstalks billow in the rhythm
of knowing, not-knowing, between.
There goes my scythe, blade first.

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