you nightmare’d sucking colors from the rhododendrons
left with a garden of floating fish eyes–open, unblinking,
their lashes crusted with pollen. it left your morning
empty-bellied, anxious energy stewing until your knuckles
could dig into soil again, hoping to edge off the impossible
hands of decay. the bees were creating habitats of the was
and could be, while watching you play some type of God
in a garden, disturbed stamens carrying on wind to itch
at the earlobes, you brushed at them as the sun began
to stain the land in its ochre spit. in this moment,
the desperation of your hours felt more beautiful,
for if even birds present garbage to their lovers,
what does it matter if some of the carrots have wilted?
syan jay is an agender writer of Dził Łigai Si’an N’dee descent. They are the author of Bury Me in Thunder (Sundress Publications, 2020). They were the winner of the 2018 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize and Frontier Poetry’s 2019 Frontier New Voices Fellow. Their work has been published in POETRY, The Rumpus, Black Warrior Review, Room Magazine, and more. You can find more of their work at syanjay.com, or follow on Instagram for writing news and touring: @syansays.