How much I love the way
I find you: ramble-leafed,
overgrown. Your histories
twine through the deadnettle,
bird skulls. I pocket your tenderness,
your bundle of stars, your ruby
stain. The weather grows cold.
What love is left
in you for me? Purpled grief
already wilting
in my hands. Little amethyst
jewels in the forestlight, burst
of bitterness on my tongue. You,
my summer’s last scrap,
martyred in my palm.
Amanda Auchter is the author of The Wishing Tomb, winner of the 2013 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry and the 2012 Perugia Press Book Award, and The Glass Crib, winner of the 2010 Zone 3 Press First Book Award for Poetry. Auchter’s recent work appears in The Huffington Post, CNN, Crab Creek Review, The West Review, The Indianapolis Review, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Project. She lives in Houston, TX.