Jessica Lee McMillan

cut for the dying, funeral flowers
make shoes for descent.

I trim away curling leaves,
leave fresh petals.

repurpose scent
to chase after death.

their sweet is a disappearing
of snowflakes drowned

as ocean submerges earth balms;
the florist shop in torrential rain

is mere watercolour—my rippling beacon
—a drop caught in the pores.

a greedy minute for beauty
is death. I can’t keep.

never these fingers catch a fragrance
where fragrance is sent.

fingers swollen river logs, tin-ringed;
their metal tint and tree bled

met with obsolescence. its true perfume
written in runoff from the mountain.

 

---

JESSICA LEE McMILLAN is an emerging poet with an MA in English. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Train Poetry Journal, Gap Riot Press, Blank Spaces, Antilang, Tiny Spoon, Pinhole Poetry, Dream Pop Journal, SORTES and others. She writes from New Westminster, British Columbia.