The Indonesian bee orchid sings
with flaming tongue. My hostess
apologizes for the hair she lost
to chemo. For a hundred miles,
a cicada clung to my car’s back window.
I stopped for gas at dusk and she’s gone now—
overcome by fumes? The chemists who distill
what fills our tanks and shelves don’t
know or don’t speak up. We trust
in antioxidants. Rely on red wine
in moderation. Learn to wear respirators
to muck and gut homes flooded
by worsening storms. I can barely
hear this orchid’s song. It is thin,
in the key of C minor—
citrus, with a shadow.
—
Kelly Lenox (The Brightest Rock, 2017) writes poetry and prose in Oregon. Her work appears in Poetry Daily, Black Warrior Review, Cold Mountain, RHINO, EcoTheo Review and elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, with an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Kelly publishes “Mama Ephemera’s Muddy Feet” on Substack (kellylenox.substack.com) and is a science editor at the National Institutes of Health.
