Thistle
by Margaux Novak
The way I grew to you, my surprise, at how you understood the thistle-knot of my mind. How little did I know it wove its roots through you, this plant I’d predestined for solitude. Who knew this bloom at your tenor, its prickled thorns dry and flammable, would thirst and soften? In love or lust I curl up, feel your knees echo behind mine, clamp down, I think, don’t over-want. My night eyes see how you lean, and I imagine coils of me around your forearm, red upon red upon skin upon you upon me. In night, creation loosens in a reality of lips meeting lips as you rub in the fingerprint of your mouth. Wakeful I proclaim, It is not morning. If I lie still, rack up enough hours wrestling between our two dreamworlds, then maybe your heart ink tracing my horizontal silhouette will seep into me—fire buried in ash.
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