pith

squeezed lime’s pucker
piercing serum spurs
wild green
zest for lyre

pliant spurned
pursed lips
limn the middle distance
lisped limits parse thickets

clasp a spar
peril spared
safety rises plum
a slumped limp plume

persistent pith glosses
what remains unasked
what green song blue
lyre by the indigo vat

— listen to Bronwen Tate read pith

mote

persistent tooth
amalgam gap
a missing mote
avoided truth

floss digs an ache
gummed husk of oat
a habit node
the gesture rote

loose tune unspools
the twinge too mild
for tendered tools’
enamel toll

can I ignore
all winter long
this fissured rift
its cornered song

— listen to Bronwen Tate read mote

Bronwen Tate’s The Silk the Moths Ignore is forthcoming from Inlandia Institute in 2021. Tate is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Her poems and essays have appeared in Bennington Review, Contemporary Literature, CV2, Journal of Modern Literature and The Rumpus. More: bronwentate.com