At Midnight she indulges
Her nitrogen fixation, sups lightning
From stained bone china
Brittle, the Poet crushes diazotrophs
To fertilize herself — marking her
Strophes with little fish flakes —
Such imported points of detonation
For those bloated lake carp, 
Pitch-black holes for Mouths

The Poet is Mother, crying ink
to ink, she treads a Labyrinth
Under limestone threads — her mind
Declines to fruit — the Poet
Hones her teeth on tree rot
Grinds down Greek and Latin
Roots until Hunger breaks
The Poet blacks out
Every last syllable

Back inside her lacunar chamber
The Poet rewrites madness
Harvests her Shaggy hair
Deliquesces metaphor
Morphemes and finally
Her host, Morpheus unchains
This dreadful bliss — plummeting
Into a Natural spring — the Poet
Spores as aphasic Tempests.

[Mariel Herbert likes to write little mythic poems. Some of these can be found in Corvid Queen, Dwarf Stars 2022, Eternal Haunted Summer, and Eye to the Telescope. Mariel can be found near the Pacific Ocean or online at marielherbert.wordpress.com.]