In the Playing Field

a poem

Andreas Kretschmer/Unsplash

I was careful
to slit the stalks near
the very end,
my baby nail trying not
to brutalise the slender stems,
tongue tip cornering
as another limp victim
is threaded through
to paradise — along my
unlucky string
of sacrifice,
where trophies plucked
from juicy grass
are doomed to dangle
on the hexagonal —
pale lashes crushed,
blind to their sun,
crumbling to dust
less than golden.
I was never put off
by this…