Triolet for the Third Transcendental

Triolet for the Third Transcendental

Zachary Bartles

A single flower, placed in a scale-pan,
might balance the scale
against all suffering. Nothing more than
a single flower. Place it in a scale-pan
and the opposite pan might lift violently, then fall slant
on its chains, trickling blood as the arm teeters. All might entail
on a single flower placed in a scale-pan
to balance the scale.

---

Zachary Bartles
Poet

Zachary was raised in the Shenandoah Valley of West Virginia. His work appears in the journals Appalachian Review and Ribbons, among others. He lives in East Texas with his wife, where he is a stay-at-home father to their daughter.

Photography by Aedrian