The mist has long hands pulling you in, teeth of gray flowers
and the quiet murmur of grief. Seen from the window the forest
is dark, a soft song of branches encased by the famished fingers
of lilium, by the low hum of the car.

There is fire at the edges that alters the trees, where you stand firm
and ablaze in radium-spiders of lilies: your hand is the slow chant
of the fog, murmuring, pulling, sinking.

You are ablaze in the incoming darkness, radio/active love-filled
hands pouring out at the edge of the woods, closer, by me.

Called, I respond to your rays.

Federica Santini lives in Atlanta and teaches at Kennesaw State University. She holds an MA from the University of Siena, Italy, and a PhD from UCLA. She has authored or edited four volumes on poetics and her work has been published internationally in over sixty journals and anthologies.