MiPo Poetry Board Best of 2002

Love me like a locust 
(Insect Challenge)

Must I incite the moon into
raising a speckled night?

She’s bored with glowing
on the tide, turning away,
tugging at horse reins,
leashing the spray back
—rolling.

on the beams we’ll gallop…
stopping under slouching
willow.

The fog of your wispy
hair rises in the wind like moths,

I’ll rend through your clothes,
devouring your curves and kisses…
and curves…and kisses…and

You, bare cash crop, I
a locust swarm in the
warm gaze of the moon

…it storms…
God mutters famine
God mutters pestilence

The moon forms blood,
red light special of mars

the locusts are on you
like a plague

willows lashing
at your dead harvest
and the swarm dashes back,
fat and exhausted, I.

You sprawled and ravished
plundered crop
awaiting the cry
of the farmer’s wife.