A Wriggle In Tea 

A licorice steam that steeps in your sleep 

will nudge you by nostril from blankets to

peep. Tea service: gamboge petit fours heap

sugar cube cottage constructed for you 

on Blue Fluted Royal Copenhagen

plates next to circle tea sandwiches, 

petaled like flowers, fragrant scent, foreign, 

you reach out to devour.  The fingers brandished,

human and fair, no feathers just freckles 

and skin at which you stare with gratitude. 

Your bird form a dream? You scream at speckled 

wrigglers seen masquerading as food,

in cutely cut bread your teeth can still bite

until you wake again: feathered, affright. 

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked journals like Glass, Yes, Five:2:One, Luna Luna and more. She is the author of seventeen books of poetry including Pink Plastic House  (Maverick Duck Press), Crow Carriage (The Hedgehog Poetry Press), Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream (TwistiT Press), The Meadow (APEP Publications) and Golden Ticket forthcoming from Roaring Junior Press.  She is the founder of Pink Plastic House a tiny journal and co-founder of Performance Anxiety, an online poetry reading series. Follow her on Twitter:  (@lolaandjolie) and her website kristingarth.com