NEW: Shelf 19 by Rufo Q

note: this is part of a longer work based on Walt Whitman's Song of Myself. I have kept the stanza structure of Whitman's poem as well as the first and last letter of each line but rewritten what comes between. Hence "Song of Myself" becomes "Shelf" etc.
...
...
19.
...
The flower
Is ill;
It is flimsy
Through having sucked
Toxins from the land
That
The weather
Turning
Turned infertile.
The gibbous moon
...
Drupelike
Widens
...
Draining the sun of its warmth.
Do not, my friends,
Deny
...
The little
I ask of you.