All Hallows’ Eve Eve, and I
dress in lambskin,
slip a dirty book
into my bag,
make a pilgrimage
to the reading,
where you’re waiting
to wink at me
and see the rose petal
I keep pressing
to my lips,
to my knee.
You trot
to catch me,
walk me
past lamplit buildings,
talking of igloos,
close enough
that my body forgets
where it stops,
until the sidewalk ends,
and I turn
while you keep going.
this lead organ peeking beneath
my rib cage sheath, cracked and weary
turn this dull heart to noble gold
and promise to hold it dearly
just behind front door autumn wreath
making out, tongues soaked in whiskey
we puddle up on the landing
love soaked arrows keep us tipsy
My young garden calls out to me, chirp
by chirp, where sparrows sing sweet, sweet, sweet,
then trill in gratitude for bee balm—
blazing purple bursts of fireworks—
and lavender sparklers of liatris.
They praise dahlias’ dinner-plate heads,
folded creamy petals where legions of bees flit,
and the upright sunflowers,
the tallest birdfeeders in this haven.
They belt out for all the flowers in between.
To whom did these flighty creatures
once call out their gratitude?
Color from across the centuries-old
pasture catches my eye. Wildflowers populate
the grasses, sown by years of northern
cardinals, Carolina chickadees,
and tufted titmice dropping seeds with blue
jays and gold finches. A mourning
dove’s familiar coo-ah coo coo drifts
down from above. I look
back at my new sowings, then out
again at what their scatterings have built.
I close my eyes and bow my head
to the true keepers of this color-filled song.
(After watching Cooking YouTuber Ethan Chlebowski)
Among twenty temptations
I dragged a pen across the white door frame
To show Icarus’ height above the driveway
When he realized the sun had moved
To a different neighborhood.
“It don’t shine on the same crowd
All the time,” said Job, alphabetizing scabs
In a filing cabinet plated in pyrite .
“A finish line,” Lazarus said with baffling snicker
As he smudged the line’s blue ink with his thumb.
“This is not a miracle,” the billboard mumbles,
Air quotes like cocked eyebrows
Discarded to the side
Above a secondhand shop, Puddin-N-Tane.
“A tight rope,” said Sisyphus,
Though no one knew why.
Then we saw an ant balancing on it
As it crossed the threshold. It tore
A fly—tattooed days before to the wall
By a swatter—in half, even though it was already
Little more than a collage—thorax, wings,
A thousand eyes.
“Ah, yes,” I said, thinking of new ways to frame it.
“Ayes,” added Long John Silver, prompting
Baffled glances all around.
Then autocorrect chimed in on the mark:
“it’s not a line, it’s a limb.”
We all looked at each other with genuine concern,
Heard a “crack!,” and fell through the bottomless shades
Planted below the tree of knowledge.
It’s over between us
there is nothing more to say
after you tell me birdsong is actually male birds posturing
warning each other
vying for territory
sometimes cawing immitatively
to trick females into fear and then
offering them a place to stay.
Have we not been through that enough
in
real
life?
how do you expect me to go on?
I thought we came out here to soak up
the yin of this tree the soaked chlorophyllic propaganda of lolly and boxwood
but all there is is the cacophany of male measuring racket in my ears and a park I used to go to all the time that I cant go to now since the new wifi tower has been put up across the streeet putting the feeling of wolfpaws back into my tendons and tearing them to shreds
don’t you understand how solitary a life an immobile body has?
How far I moved from the city to keep my pain manageable
away from towers
submerged in these lollytree woods?
how can you still love the outdoors
still love a forest
still know peace
when the lullabies in these trees
are just dinosauric catcalling
alley fights
waiting to
happen?
Why couldn’t you have told me everything
except
that?
I know ruth bader ginsberg always said the key to a good relationship is selective deafness
but I havent mastered that yet
Why couldn’t you have told me everything else
about the world,
except
that?
I order my third genetic sequencing service.
This one checks more markers.
I am full of questions and hope.
I wonder if I’ll learn.
Why’d he tucked his money into the vents?
Is my snake plant is overwatered?
How’d she live so removed from her body?
Why didn’t he speak for two full years?
Why’d they kept all those junkable cars?
Who taught him to wad up tobacco in his lip like that?
Why didn’t she want to see the ocean?
Did he know how to ride a bike?
How do I know if the tomato is ripe for pickin’?
Did anyone every dust off that old telescope?
Why’d they fill the medication they never took?
Did they really prefer Diet Rite?
