Unfound || Abigail Fenerty

Falsely fresh, discarded deep into the earth’s dust.
There she lies cradled by my depth,
each crack, and crevice filled by dirt-crusted distinct hands.
Flung unceremoniously into the deep, her scent is galling. Plagued
with the cloying call to predator and pest. Both drawn
by the ripe, rotting release from she while bacteria builds
and enzymes erupt. 

Drifting between root and rubble, rancid like milk forgotten out
on a boiling New Orleans summer day.
Noxious gas draws larva, breeding maggots who devour.
No discrimination beneath me, where deterioration consumes all souls
in my passive parental grasp. Silence reins
mixed with the soft hum of crawling critters, dredging dangers,
and everlasting earth. Unlike her, voiceless like a child
continuously hushed by uncaring guardians. 

Long forgotten but mine to care for,
she lays bitter in her abandonment, bloated with acidity.
I caress her fragile cheek, devoid of all her glowing warmth.
Undiscovered, she changes from ripe to ravaged
to repulsive. Her scent from sweet and sweaty
to sulfuric and syrupy. She lies in darkness and almost alone
except for my embrace.