Patience, My Earthbound Wormy Loves

by Susan McDonough-Hintz

November sends us underground.

Blood-brimming wrigglers.

We mine ore and rutilated grace,

shave through tunnels,

feed in fallow fields.

Harmless lies.

After soil stiffens in winter’s icy linens,

we shoot up

an early spring among the green

remnants of spent days and semen

that melt into must-haves

or stony perhaps.

Toss us to the silk-spun drape of night.

Dissect the dark.

Cluster us.
We are tangled water-bearers,
scorpions, two virgins,

one ram.