Night Blight

Night Blight

The night drops

from its silver stem,

heavy as fruit,

sinking into the socket

of the earth's closed eye.

Night flowers open their sex,

the scent lingering down

city and country lanes,

bursting past themselves,

lost, then twisted—

in hair, skin, thin cotton,

caught in a sleeve, sleeping in wet cloth—

even morning loses its trail.

It never leaves,

like the scent of the spur and its bud

hanging around the lips of my mouth,

the drip that was on my chin,

the tips of my fingers,

and somewhere beneath my tongue

where I can't wash it away.

Beautiful blight—

so deep into the night

the birds forget their names,

the night birds tangled with the bats,

winged things stitched into my hair,

your mouth still near my ear,

and the nectar in this,

enough to drown a whole season—

and us wild in moonlight because

I am one of the growers now,

opening so wide

the night opens with me,

flowers ending at my wrists,

beginning again in my mouth.

The taste hasn't left.

Sweet, secret, then stolen,

still blooming somewhere past my throat—

and I have started to prefer

the wrong of it

to any sugar I once knew.

Marni Fraser

VIII • I • MMX

II:LII PM

Flowers #2 | 2026