Laura K. Selenka

The Lure of Nectar 

She scares me, this girl, this daughter, this woman

raised quietly at Michigan lakeside, building castles, collecting stones.

At night, coyotes would howl in the distance.

One day, when she had grown, she answered,     

ran with them

through bramble, across rivers, plains, bluffs,

until red sand dusted the pads of her feet.

I discover she is solo hiking Zion.

I compulsively record her location,

a plateau 1651 miles from my kitchen table.

She texts at bedtime, her pillow in the cradle 

of her Subaru’s back seat. 

I say a prayer of protection from

lost maps, drained water bottles, 

venomous creatures and fugitives that slither.

Then another weekend, another trail of rocks, 

segura luring her like a landlocked siren.

On my phone, a photo appears—

a hummingbird moth 

sitting in her open hand.

The Sonoran desert sun glows

on her skin, glazed as if by honey,

pink, like the inside of a fig

(where an inner chamber

cloisters hundreds of tiny flowers.)

Of course the moth

had to land,

had to taste audacious joy.

Laura K. Selenka is an emerging mid-life poet from Wisconsin. She is also a freelance writer and new empty nester. Find her on Facebook at Laura K. Selenka—Poet.