Mad Honey

Sonnet by Kristin Garth

A dozen saved to wear in hair, crown,
azalea, bushes bared, while you, deprived
your petticoat in Lake Desire, sundown,
strategic, float.  A powdered coat derived

of bloom, pulverized, easily consumed
is feather brushed upon damp skin.  Avenge
two deaths — almost a mother, twin.  Perfumed
poison composed Rhododendron, tense twinge  

without your clothes, through pine forest, toward
antennaed horns, bee affectation, bug
adorned, pollinates immortally adored
enchanted lips, temptation, ancient drug  

slew an army, first century BC.
A garden teaches useful history.

---

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker. Her poetry has stalked magazines like Glass, Yes, Five:2: One, Former Cactus, Occulum & many more. She has six chapbooks including Shakespeare for Sociopaths (Hedgehog Poetry Press), Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Puritan U (Rhythm & Bones Press March 2019) and The Legend of the Were Mer (Thirty West Publishing House March 2019). Her full length, Candy Cigarette, is forthcoming April 2019 (The Hedgehog Poetry Press), and she has a fantasy collaborative full length A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony forthcoming in June (Rhythm & Bones Lit) and Flutter (TwistiT Press) in January 2020. Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie), and her website kristingarth.com