​Thistle
The sunning cut upon the walk
behind houses unable to hide
from a light not pure or impure.
Weed flowers and glass thistle,
I hated the day 
like a full life
of every unfairness and taking.
Tooth on tooth
in love and childbirth,
a saint spilt entrails into a cup.
And after the latest failed rescue
enervated like summer,
we neither would attempt again
for one or for the other.

John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His most recent chapbook,
White Vases, was published by Crisis Chronicles Press.