Diana Whitney

Nightshade

When the potato turns green
it’s poison Behold my glossy peppers

my aubergine jewels my ruby
tomatoes hanging fat
on the vine

Don’t think you can trespass
in my garden & slip away clean No one

walks out of a fairytale unscathed

Cross me once & I’ll summon
a cold spell Cross me twice
& I’ll bind you in bittersweet knotweed

dig up the daffodil bulbs like onions
& slice them for your supper

Stir hemlock root with the wishbone
of a sick hen & the scant mist
of a new moon
Even the honey
of azalea burns the mouth
with its resin

In high doses expect euphoria
hallucination the sensation of flying
darkening

into a soundless coma

If you were seeking pleasure
or mercy you crawled through
the wrong hedgerow

Swallow your apologia Taste my
dark purple bells Bite

these shiny black
berries of wrath & repair

Back to Issue XIV…

Lynne Ellis writes in pen. Their words appear in Poetry Northwest, The Seventh Wave, the North American Review, the Missouri Review, Bracken, and many other beloved journals and anthologies. Winner of the Washburn Prize, the Perkoff Prize, and the Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize, she believes every poem is a collaboration. Read their digital chapbook, "Future Sketchbook," online at Harbor Review. Ellis holds a Certificate in Editing from the University of Washington, serves as a poetry reader at Crab Creek Review, and is Publishing Editor of Tulipwood Books, a developmental-editing press. She wants to work with you.