Haley Wooning

Hillcock Hill Wept 5.

​I dream of winter, her antlers closed
in thistle, milkveiled and weighed
with longing

how does someone ever know
what to believe? the lilies fester
sticky sweet
in the belljar of something dying

the first theft is discernment, I no longer
differentiate between the strange realms
of wake or sleep, a dark’s diminished
creature

like childhood, certainty has fled
from me forever. I am no archer, I must
accept the irretrievable or perish beneath
the wound-weight of its bow

outside, summer chokes the sky
somewhere in my hallway a lily tips
in its glass, unknown
​
perhaps I never believed in the first place

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Haley Wooning lives in California where she works as a therapist and writes poetry. Her poetry book, Mothmouth, is available on Amazon and through its publisher, Spuyten Duyvil.