Nick Flynn

 Amber

Hover 
the imagined center, our tongues 
grew long to please it, licking 

the walls, a chamber built of scent, 

a moment followed by a lesser moment 
& a hunger to return. It couldn't last. Resin 

flowed glacially from wounds in the bark 
pinned us in our entering 
as the orchids opened wider. First, 

liquid, so we swam until we couldn't. 
Then it felt like sleep, the taste of nectar 

still inside us. Sometimes a flower 

became submerged with us. A million years 
went by. A hundred. Swarm of hoverflies, 
cockroach, assassin bug, all 

trapped, suspended 

in that moment of fullness, 
a Pompeii, the mother 

covering her child's head forever.