Again, Spring
Elyse Fenton
| poetry
Flagpole or war ship, the first
purple asparagus drills its blunt
rigging through the dirt.
You want to say worship this—
but it’s relentless, like the first time
you stick your finger down
the baby’s throat. How wrong
to believe you are dislodging death.
You, the god who put it there.
Elyse Fenton is the author of the award-winning poetry collection, Clamor. Her second manuscript, Sweet Insurgent, won the PSA’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Prize. She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.