Backyard Hymnal by Olivia Olsen

Dragging the fly carcasses with a wrung-out rag 

as moonlight peeks past your shoulder.        Yes,

bugs get scared, too: lifting a boulder up by

exoskeleton, your heartbeat patters

a rhythm that’s translucent, water     stripes

the porch foundation.   Fluttering         back 

into the cotton rounds.            I don’t know

if I want to be here forever. Suckle   honey 

when it’s still sweet before   morning dew 

sinks it sour. Instead,   muddle me 

green: chlorophyll  weeps from the wound.

To be eternal is algae-coated. To be eternal

is the headstone placed     two years    later

when grass is doused  in tethers of yellow. 

Cuckoo is always woven with wind.       

But this time, 

Olivia Olsen doesn’t think time exists. She is a senior corporate communication major with music business and writing & rhetoric minors, and is from Raleigh, North Carolina. Her works are inspired by loss, young adulthood, music, and her upbringing between the North and South.