A Scottish Arid Wilderness

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

He is a Scottish thistle, not upon

A Scottish moor.  It is as if he grows

In desert wasteland where no Scottish dawn

Has ever risen.  There this thistle glows

Within his chest beside his manly hair

Upon each breast.  That hair is like a growth

Of desert weeds, of withered vines that snare

His heart as if some god has sworn an oath

Against the blossoming of love.  The broom

In flower beside the thistle would have smelled

Of coconut, in malest Scottish room

(His heart) but fragrant blooms have been withheld.

  It is as if he has a womb within

    His ribs in Moses’s Desert of Sin.

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