Hinged at the hip, I lift the veil of woolly
thyme, where threads of bindweed disappear,

white into earth. Arrowed leaves coil sedum,
milkvetch, hyssop’s sweet mint—my hyssop

thrumming with this solitary bee, night after
night. Smoke-penned, we despair, absent rain,

record heat, dirt’s covering of the root
of the root: long taps that circumnavigate

underworld. Haunt us, enigmatic
endings, while demons at midday publish

our work from rooftops. Reveal things never
before revealed. Snap under the pull of my hand—

white as the next fear. White as the next
thunderbolt to take the mountain and leave

no rain. As the horse, messageless.

Kathryn Knight Sonntag is the author of the poetry collection The Tree at the Center (BCC Press, 2019). She has recent and forthcoming poems in Colorado Review, Ethel, Rock & Sling, The Shore, Psaltery & Lyre, The Inflectionist Review, and the anthology Blossom as the Cliffrose (Torrey House Press, 2021). She works as a freelance writer and landscape architect in Salt Lake City. kathrynknightsonntag.com