Lilyanne Kane
Radiance in the End Times
Six-string instruments serenade her respiratory illness.
She squints behind an analog camera as the voice on
the loudspeaker repeats: “You are safe / so long as you
cooperate. Stay indoors / and wait / for further instruction.”
Beyond us, outside, somewhere, there’s spools of stupendous
sunshine unwinding itself, gossamers stretching across verdant
mushrooms. There are California poppy trees heavy with blossoms
and fat-veined poppy-cock. Blissful bees collect clandestine pollen.
Inscrutably, indubitably, irrefutably— the world goes on. Nature
purrs in this pause of humanity, phallic florals and yonic fauna
perpetuating life in spite of the virus that gnaws away at the
humans most vulnerable and least responsible for this bullshit.
—Submitted on 03/27/2020
Lilyanne Kane is a non-binary lesbian poet and educator based in San Francisco. They hold an MFA in poetry from the Mississippi University for Women. Their work has appeared most recently in Mojave He[Art] Review and Sonder Midwest. They can be found on Twitter @PluralFloral.
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