"Last Blush" debuted in Volume 38 of Pudding Magazine, the International Journal of Applied Poetry.

Last Blush

A flame of leaves fans wide
as an unkempt Irishman's goatee,
as the speckled flush of exertion.
The pumpkins are pregnant,
the air--a slap in the face, the blue
pilot of the Rheem furnace--out.
Could this foliage named by Moses
be addressing me? I thirst,
though the ground is damp. I hunger,
though the berries are ripe,
easy picking for tufted titmice.
While the voice on the mountain
booms and names this lack, this pain
by parable, it preaches nothing new,
the story is the same--the source
of famine is not a drought of rain.
I could have painted this myself
with a pailful of Sherwin Williams.
I too would have picked an exterior red,
Sun Dried Tomato for blood relatives,
a kiss to torch the absent mouth,
tongues of wind to linger south.
But--having recently engaged
neither man nor my own reliable
hand, I scorn the rapture of the feast,
turn away, reject what may well be
the only Burning Bush in weeks
to come for me.