Golden Shovel with Scorpion¹

Oleanders and their inflorescence
and white toxins, botanical. I am easily disarmed–
a diamond almost devoid of gloss. A
moon has oceans, named for vapor and nectaries,
called “maria”, called “mare cognitum”–
to the “sea that has become known”--
white as salt flats, flat as clapboard,
bored rigid as offices and fluorescent halls.
In the pit of moonlets or oleander, sallow in color, like
the inside of my palm, lacking coins and
room keys– snowy hotel feather-beds
where I could read Alice Notley: “the room where
Momma found a scorpion”. I couldn’t sleep in Alabama,
found myself alert and supine, wary–
a horde of venom expected under cloth, a
scorpion’s mouthparts, spiracles clicking apart.

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¹ This Golden Shovel was written using three lines from Alice Notley’s poem, “The Anthology”.