Father Time is Cutting a Chili
Seeds are kids playing Ring a Ring o’ Roses.
Placenta, capsaicin glands, and apex;
we are promised a wave, by brilliant crest
gathered onto land and at last broken.
Kids become an archipelago, disrupting
currents of relief, bearing samphire and heat,
perennial, growing beyond Scoville and grades,
past podium and all recipe,
to meet fate, small as papillae or else grand —
being and replacing — and finally,
by organic churn and clock’s bladed turn,
taking our breath away.
Ewen Glass (he/him) is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise, and lots of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland, and Gordon Square Review. His debut chapbook, ‘The Art of Washing What You Can't Touch,’ is available from Alien Buddha Press.