DEAD VIOLETS STAIN THE WHITE PORCH

I haven’t seen the lady who walks the rural road
in weeks.

Asphalt heat roasts the chickens.
Three deaths this week already.
The guineas abandoned their nest.
Dollars dead, says the farmer.

I, too, want to bask in the moonlight
on the other side of life.
The animals tell me it’s cold and turquoise.

*

Camille Newsom is a livestock farmer in Western Michigan. In her poems she observes our living and dying world through humor, grief, and a sprinkling of spite. Her first chapbook is This Suffering and Scrumptious World (Galileo Press, 2023). Her poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Southword, Terrain.org, Main Street Rag, MAYDAY, and others.