20. Annie Robertson + Marietta Brill

With a slight tremble touching thoughts to pen
I worry if it's the sickness or how a body imitates the season, buds on branches,
waving like wands in a sky fevered and dazzling
like police lights are dazzling, like sirens are new growth
asking, aren’t we ready to be less alone?
We used to breathe in the same room, what a marriage
of evidence and deception, bees circling closed blossoms
and calling it on the century. 
Show me how to live keenly
as an insect with one good sting before croaking
as in the millisecond before touching
when what hurts could stay inside 
but spills into my burning palms
like catching water before it's blessed.