taking the corner too fast
on the straight be fast
and slow before the corner
or prepare to crash
know about this
below-
so you don’t forget
as if
any time of day
can be
simple.
every time can be
each to all.
I slink under shelter of log rot,
leaf pile & bog. Hide my showy
red & yellow stripes under the quarter
moon. I am barely visible, a muted
skittering. Mistaken for the deadly
coral, I mock danger. I do not tote
venom. I bamboozle you, graceless
human, with the scarlet spoon
of my head. I spritz putrid
musk to make certain you keep
your distance. But hear me clumsy
human. I am generous; I care
about your collapse. While I nosh
on rattlesnake & cottonmouth
to protect you from their swift & deadly
stabs, you throw no festivals
for me, your serpent bright
& benign. Where is my jubilant scarlet
snake wingding? My non-toxic jamboree?
I swear to you my snake heart is pure.
Today I return
(for AC)
Being the grime and sand in each rainbow
of the coal stained church windows
of the Gospel Light Free Will Baptist,
and the silence of little babies
like those thank you cards embossed
into politeness by Daddy’s screams,
and owls screeching in the snow.
Being that you hunted on a grizzled road
wet with life, a sop-rained 120 miler nearer
to Pikeville where rivers made the lake
with help. Nature, interrupted by cash-grab
hands looking for clean-coal. Rolling,
a chauffeured Mercedes-Benz, where
the hills whisper your name every six years.
Addison. Mitchell. McConnell.
From the Luberon or Spain
or some other rainless plain,
each bottle’s filled with lazy afternoons
of sitting in cafés
and whiling sunny days
while eating cheese and grapes and macaroons.
the sun tarries long
behind soft cotton clouds
reading a book
waiting to emerge
for summer solstice
