Light in the Villa Borghese

If it hasn’t happened yet it will,
waking up to find we’ve become
something botanical.
Like the freesia weeping its way
around that temple’s cracked
white foot, those stone pines
mushroomed over us. Or your head,
which the sun’s slump has turned
a terse persimmon. I want this
to be light enough, to know
what a decade of love undoes—
its curled patience, bowed spines,
all the bestial flower heads
we trace the arc of our bet around.
As in, would you still take
this little fragolino, two plastic cups,
our (accidental!) broken bottle.
As in, if there’s still time to forgive
will you forgive what can be held
in two palms praying? I guess
the ask was always strange.
A speckled bird. & I till death
of any sort your main mystic.

Alexa Winik is a Canadian poet and writer currently based in Edinburgh. She holds an MLitt in Women, Writing, and Gender and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of St Andrews. Her work is published or forthcoming in The Scores, Poetry Review, and Structo. Follow her on Twitter @aj_winik.