love in the bracken

Ailea sang—-

oh my beloved, will you lay down with me
in the new and tender bracken, in the spring grass
with the nodding bluebonnets surrounding us,
the meadow-stars blessing us;
may I taste your throat, and the valley of your collarbone
may I expose you, in the new sun, the tiny droplets
of the fallen dew, the sudden showering of rain—-

there are thorns in the grasses, oh my beloved
but I will laugh when the little spider dances over my belly
if your lips are there to trace her footsteps—-
we are creatures tasked, my love, our time
so brief and hard to place, like spring
but we are here, and this is all, like joy, there is.