Today's poem is by Leah Poole Osowski

Made Him a Lawn, Field, Side Yard
       

I find grass blades in the sheets
green as ripe buds, shards discarded

like stray hairs. Then stains, clover-colored
shadows on the insides of John's clothes.

We bend two hours in the yard, picking up sticks
and inside the rooms have that just-cleaned look.

I stare at his hair full minutes and swear
there's a rustling, like someone removed

the lay of their body from his lawn.
John's bruising in yellows, all remnants,

as the field erupts in dandelions. Ghost press
of thumbprints on the insides of his limbs.

In a month, I'll blow the seeds off his skin
and wish for rain. Try not to imagine

the nightcrawlers digging through the dirt
of him, drowning in his mud. For now

I keep quiet, run my bare feet down his legs
as he sleeps, cut across the dark backyard,

just out of arch of the motion floodlights,
wake up dew damp, the sprawl of his back to mine.

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Copyright © 2023 Leah Poole Osowski All rights reserved
from Exceeds Us
Saturnalia Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission