Testing times
My bones scold-heavy, heartsick
I drag my eyes anywhere –
to the funeral wax of lilies,
to the boastful damselflies
confident in their beauty.
I refuse to look at, to acknowledge,
that Chair, waiting to test. Solid.
I won’t watch the righteous faces
of the men who crowd the pool, lusting.
Their shoes so mud crusted. I won’t consider
the greedy water eager to judge me.
From the woods a vixen cries.
A slop of frog leaps on a lily pad,
dark blotching the leaf.
This pond is a brackish frenzy
of kicking, slithering as gold flecked
tadpoles shape-shift the depths.
How I envy them.
Finola Scott‘s work is widely published including in The Lighthouse, Ofi Press, the High Window and I,S&T. As well as enjoying performing her poetry, when not gorging on workshops she dances in her kitchen. Dreich publish her new pamphlet Count the ways.