Myrmecochory or, Stochastic Be Thy Pollination by Rick Hollon

After the Wikipedia page for Trillium grandiflorum

Everyone knows the real action

is in root and rhizome

making deals with mycorrhizae

trafficking in nutrients

and biding seven years.

Trust you the wind, or bees

shaking off last season’s pollen

bumbling drunkards adoze

while patient and sunfaced

you risk harvest and decay—

petals abook, flatpressed?

No. No. Seven seasons no.

What is a seed but a temptation?

Elaiosome fit for a queen

marched ant by ant

and to what, I ask?

Yes—underground again.

Gathered and kindly forgotten

and left to our real business,

dormancy and double dormancy,

wary twicemore of air and bees.

---

Rick Hollon (they/them or fey/fem) is a nonbinary, intersex, bi/queer writer from the American Midwest. Feir work has appeared or is forthcoming in perhappened, Whale Road Review, HELL IS REAL, The Madrigal, Stanchion Zine, Kaleidotrope, and other publications. Find them on Twitter @SailorTheia.