Lizzy Burnam 🐞

the nail tech wraps my feet 
in hot towels scented with sage 
and lavender, a combination
she calls “the stress fix.” 
her name means bough of trees. 
she is dressed in dark green, 
hair braided like a willow branch. 
the stylist at the next station
raises her voice to be heard 
over the hairdryer, says she lives
on the 13th floor of a 15-story
building by the bay. on full moon
nights, the ocean crashes 
so loudly she needs earplugs 
to sleep, and at dusk on clear 
coastal evenings, when the sun 
has just barely dipped below 
the horizon, sunlight passes 
through the earth’s atmosphere 
like a prism and a green beam 
of light shoots up for just a moment
before night falls. like the envoy 
of a dying day: you will never again 
go wrong in matters of the heart. 
still, the scarlet rhododendron 
blooms there: with shallow roots, 
enticing as she kills. sweet as honey. 
lucky you. the nail tech asks 
if the sugar scrub is too rough
on my shins. no. i think of the snake 
scraping her head against the rock
to slough away the dead skin. 
i choose a shade of polish called 
“hunter.” to the wounded deer, 
even the rustle of a blueberry bush
sounds too much like violence.