Backyard Hymnal

Dragging the fly carcasses with a wrung-out rag

as moonlight peeks past your shoulder.        Yes,

bugs get scared, too: lifting a boulder up by

exoskeleton, your heartbeat    patters

a rhythm that’s translucent, water     stripes

the porch foundation.   Fluttering         back

into the cotton rounds.            I don’t know

if I want to be here forever. Suckle    honey

when it’s still sweet before    morning dew

sinks it sour. Instead,      muddle me

green: chlorophyll  weeps from the wound.

To be eternal is algae-coated. To be eternal

is the headstone placed     two years    later

when grass is doused  in tethers of yellow.

Cuckoo is always woven with wind.      

But this time,

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Olivia Olsen doesn’t think time exists. She is a senior corporate communication major with music business and writing & rhetoric minors, and is from Raleigh, North Carolina. Her works are inspired by loss, young adulthood, music, and her upbringing between the North and South.

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