Fall clean-up
– the soil brown and soft as a fresh grave.
I plant Zopiclone in my rock garden
sending it to sleep for two seasons.
Press Ativan bulbs three inches deep
down the throat of a lost foxglove.
My thumbs dissolve into dust. Tucking
the rake back in the shed I add instructions
on how to breathe. Pour a cold glass of weed-killer.
Dead leaves still clinging to my ankles.
*
Corsage
My lover brings me a dandelion
on a wire stem. Pokes the sharp end
through my skin to pin it on my breast.
It slips into my body, wraps my false ribs
in its long metal roots, spilling
its milky juice in my synovial fluid.
I want to tell him it hurts to love
but puffballs fall from my mouth
spreading his greedy seed to the world
each time I exhale.
*
Lisa Alletson grew up in South Africa and the UK, and now lives in Toronto, Canada. Her writing is forthcoming/published in Crab Creek Review, New Ohio Review, Eunoia Review, Lumiere Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Flash Fiction Magazine, Sledgehammer Lit, among others. Twitter @LotusTongue
