Eight years of picking flowers at dusk
before Mendel was defrocked,
for artificial fertilization
was a kind of Onanism.
The sort that no one could condone
once they saw the white pea flowers
spilling from their trellis
to the red mulch.
Defrocked he walked, a handful
of seed in his creased palm
and dirt beneath his fingertips
the waxing moon at hand.
Nights like these are hard
and white and crack
like eggshell when you
look at them.
And Mendel looked for
he wasn’t yet blind
and he fingered the,
handgun?
Yes. A handgun in his pocket.
And he stood and felt
the handgun’s lead shards
tremble inside.
Standing in the white night
that kept him up,
could he help
but spill those too?
Felix Deiss
DCC: Deiss Composition Collection 