Cola
In the garden, a honeybee Nascars
‘round sun sugars + into my open cola.
Legs + wings against the aluminum lips,
twinkling, the can another crawlspace—
insect-interest. Once it touches the drink,
the too-much dark, + gets wet, weighty,
winded, the honeybee will curl + float
atop the soda pop, like a crescent moon.
I heard cola can dissolve a nail
if submerged + left long enough
in the sweet. That it can bleach
the blood right off your fender
+ white your toilet bowl.
We drink it nonetheless—
in our house, it’s considered
gold. Of course, I could pour
out the cola + the bee, or abandon it
altogether in the bed of mulch—
the can a strange statue
for the rabbit to lean ‘round
for leaves. But the sun
is hot + I am thirsty.
Kieron Walquist [he/they] is a queer poet and visual artist from Mid-Missouri. Author of OUR HANDS HOLD VIOLENCE, a 2024 National Poetry Series winner and 2026 Norma Farber First Book Award finalist, his other work appears in Northwest Review, Poet Lore, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. A 2026 Unbound Emerging Poet honoree, he holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and is currently a PhD student at the University of Utah.