Honey locust trees seep sweetness like ink—
Blue poisoning their stumps—run to thorny
vines that intrude on themselves and adorn
suffocation in light, yellowish pink.
Honey-shucks trail end-to-end, remnant link
between holed rubber boots and the warmly
way crimson spills from fingers, feet and knees.
Only—cut back—we survive at the brink,
mulberry veins splaying limbs no chainsaw
could hack protection labeled invasive
whose thickets too toughened to ever cut.
Wordless I trace out their unwritten law,
Inky blue poison falling still from me—
sorted kindly death so rarely unearthed.
Elly Boes is a peer tutor and fellow at DePaul’s writing center as well as a student journalist working as Senior Associate Editor for 14 East magazine. In their free time, Boes enjoys writing poetry, swimming in Lake Michigan and playing with their two cats, Stevie and Jodie.