Milkweed
       

Linnaeus missed the fish in it—the seeds
queued up like scales—thought Asclepias
mostly for its root and sap, folkbalm
for rashes, warts, the blood that doesn't
clot: there was a god who loved a girl
who was a whore and we burn bitches,
which is where the thing began, medicine
, in the belly of the slut Asclepius
is being cut from the way you pluck alive
the filaments from the pod—white
moths, if they catch the wind. This insect
likeness Linnaeus also left unnoted.
But as a panacea it leaves something—
don't you think?—to be desired.
Sweeter species can be toxic; others deter
the worms. And could Coronis help it
if she no longer loved Apollo? Stranger
things are written down of these bodies
in which the uterus roams. Cooked down
it makes fine paper on which to write
how white and soft and sweet she is,
this girl that is a cure that is a weed.

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Copyright © 2018 Sarah Barber All rights reserved
from Country House
Pleiades Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission