Bailey’s branch

by Jaycee Billington

Blind in old sloe 

drilling lime sink 

in icy scrim 

rhombohedral crystals 

of calcite fossiliferous. 

How old we say this dark is. 

Bored in shell marl 

lamellibranchs and diatom’s 

silliate casts, coprolitic. 

Dig spicules enough to breach 

cooling groundwater---aquifer 

past the brine. Spring a well 

to fill a bathtub with chilled 

Budweiser for the timber leasers. 

Everything must have been bright once. 

About the poet: Jaycee Billington studied poetry at Georgia College and State University and is a current student of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work appears in Plain China, the peacock’s feet, Hotel Amerika and The Oyez Review. She is the winner of a Wilson Award for excellence in writing.