Sage

by Amy Ekins

There are licks of green about your face.
I see long grass threaded into your hair,
smudges of leaves against your lips,
and acorns threaded then hung from your ears.

I long to look these licks close up,
to touch them with my tongue and tell you how they taste –
like soil, and iron, and cold clarts, no doubt. Maybe a slip
of sage, just at the edge, from where we tumbled into the herb patch?

Unlikely. You bristle when I near you, oak become pine,
smoking like woodbine with tension at the mention
I may want to speak with you. You stopper your mouth
with twigs, and run, leaving mossy footprints in your wake.