Diagnosis Post

---

Field of flowers, 71

and sunny, the native

intelligence of trees

and owls, bees and

dolphins all now

in the air: what is

the nature of

nature but

 

a buzz, a shriek, a hum:

a whistle that echoes in the dark,                      what a hoot

deceptive as a mushroom in the wild.

 

Getting up the hill

wasn’t the hard part

that morning, but

the downward leg,

weak rubber walk,

a mudslide of me                                                     hold on

down a mountain-

side of what if, an

avalanche falling

like the loose

bowels of worry.

 

These wild flowers

special, precious,

fragile post-picking,                                                help me                                          

their wildness cut out:

they can’t be

zinnias or peonies

or dahlias now.

 

I am uneven land, a

ridge of regret, furrowed

but fallow, unseeded

under the sun.  

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About the author

Patrick Davis is a poet and essayist. His work has previously appeared in Provincetown Arts, and he has ghost-written five books for major publishing houses. He conducted his graduate research in American literature at Washington University in St. Louis under the mentorship of William H. Gass. He and his husband live in Atlanta with a bulldog named Ox.