It will be eight minutes
before we know of it.
We’ll be out in the wilderness
on a spring afternoon,
watching the flowers open
themselves as wide as possible
while the frenzied cloud of bees
reaps this new harvest.
Eight minutes of rising heat.
We’ll feel it spread on our skin
and welcome its stroke.
The clothes will vanish
like the last of night’s dew,
and we’ll lie down together
on a verdant bed of living
things, sweat moistening
the places where we touch,
steam escaping our open mouths.
It will end as it all began:
two lovers uniting in flesh,
eyes closed to the radiance
burning at the garden’s edge.
By Matthew J. Andrews
Matthew J. Andrews is a private investigator and writer. He is the author of the chapbook I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember, and his work has appeared in Rust + Moth, Pithead Chapel, and EcoTheo Review, among others. He can be contacted at matthewjandrews.com.