When a question of love
is spoken out loud
a country may turn on a dime
swift as tornado, sink into itself
claiming a pain in its footing
makes it weak, or raise an alarm
of daisies as fragrant with blood
as with its own home soil; see

in this moment filled with
a question of love, of what and who
and how will it manifest itself, a country
refusing its own affections, some beyond
its acknowledgement, some more than it
can bear — how far it spins itself
away from embrace as it twists back upon
its old haunts and legacies;

a country slipping as it spins
avoiding a question of love, falls
upon that sword it has held to be
its best lover, turning bloody scars
back upon itself in a storm of petals
and fiery odor, how it imagines
high winds at its back instead of
blowing out from its core.