Solitary tan lines
The sun my only companion
today of all easy days.
I thought of you
on the ground,
ants crawling on my arms
smelling of heat and grass baking in it.
When I fell asleep,
my dreams were warm
though I woke up
cottonmouthed.
The sun my only companion
today of all easy days.
I thought of you
on the ground,
ants crawling on my arms
smelling of heat and grass baking in it.
When I fell asleep,
my dreams were warm
though I woke up
cottonmouthed.
after Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland
1.
There’s a house between ramshackle and pristine
in the middle of some unknown wood. Inside are artifacts
I don’t recognize. When I turn around, I see a unicorn
limned with a sparkling halo.
2.
What if the furry boughs of that ornamental tree
were the legs of a dormant tarantula, and it woke to juxtapose
the golden sun against the silver moon?
3.
I traded all my oxidized pennies for a star to store in a jar.
Sometimes, it glows so brightly I almost can’t sleep.
I wonder where it wants to go.
4.
“Sorry!” I say to my bed’s square frame after bumping into the sharp corner that will surely leave a bruise.
“Quite alright, madame,” it replies. “‘Twas no trouble at all, you didn’t even scrape the finish.”
5.
The roses are so pink they’re red, inviting me to pluck
one, never mind the thorns. If I roll up the flower, mash
the petals in my fist, and throw
it up as high as I could, the sky would turn magenta.
I could throw out my Barbie pink sunglasses.
6.
Did you know a fossilized saber’s tooth will rip
time? I step through the gaping tear
to pull the wooly mammoths from the tar that would have consumed
them. Back in the present, Big Bone Lick would just be a no-name forest, but if you went far enough north, you’d find tusk marks.
right wing Christians
still tilt at windmills
in intellectual wars
settled over a century ago
but blithely admit
today’s enemies
at the gate.
must have been fifteen years now we started collecting
right after the first funeral
(sorry if you thought this would be less morbid)
peace lilies, of course
also some other greenery, a few ivies
they have names
each one that of a family member
we just fell into it really – Bob needs watered, honey
that sort of thing
(not using real names here, they’re too special)
but you get the picture,
now it just seems strange had we not
I mean, it’s how we remember now
a watering, or repotting, feeding, clipping away brown leaves
the care we take now mimics
the love we had then, and still do
almost the perfect
inheritance
left alone for 3 hours
they run, leap, jump
in and out of
their new pool
wrestling,
thundering around our yard
and manage to crash into
and break
my Talavera pot,
scattering pottery pieces
and a beloved cactus
cacti are resilient-this one
snuggles into a new pot
with the old dirt,
out of the canine traffic pattern
pieces of Talavera,
sharp edges pushed into the soil,
decorate raised planting beds,
now above the fray
I can’t outrun the damage you’ve done to me.
It’s been a while since I’ve tried to.
Distance makes the heart grow forgiveness.
It twisted through my arteries,
setting an easy air of seperation.
A smile for a phone call.
Forked into the devil’s tongue.
It will leave me ill
but at ease.
Captivity makes the sleeping wolf rabid.
The chord of fear
struck through my body
since I was a little girl.
a doll
a Little Mermaid book
and two matchbox cars
in a drawer
in a room
at a party.
It’s what I don’t remember that scares me.
But what I do remember
is the primal need
to get out of that run-down black car
as you took an unfamiliar speed
down familiar streets.
Angry like a car crash
that I simultaneously prayed
would and wouldn’t come.
somebody not cutting down my lantana
gives it space to breathe
its leaves flippy flopping in the
little bit
of breeze against my back forty feet of yard
I paid a woman-owned landscape company in the city once to come tidy my previous yard
Her (all male) team immediately chopped down all my bushes,
all of which were
flowering
beautiful
salvias.
She didn’t refund the day’s charge
despite commiserating that indeed they should have known
not to cut flowering items
I wonder a lot about why the lantana leaves in the sixfoot clump in the back backyard are thin and normal green
not dark green like the lantana I buy at nurseries
lantana has unique flower formation
nothing can be like it
nothing mistaken for it
but the nursery leaves are like
a cross between
oregano
and peppermint
looking edible
don’t eat it that way. I did once on accident
one more way my concussion interferes.
Cognition is valuable
especially when foraging
eight months of steroids later…
Why this lantana
has leaves half the thickness
of paper
and yields half a shade lighter than kelly green.
It looks more chewable,
like a moment in the mouth would give you clarity
about the purpose of the back flat teeth you have
like it would make a paste of goo in the mouth
like if you spit it into your hand, the goo would be thin, soft,
where the nursery’s leaves chewed up would end in jaggedness and frustrated saliva feeling impotent against the power of those cellulose walls.
I cant imagine a more southern name for a
plant
than lantana
I lived once near the home where Steel Magnolias filmed
but on the Texas side, too far from multicutural Shreveport for my taste
but close enough to find crawfish at the grocery store.
But if I had lived on the other side,
I’d have been closer to the Angola plantation prison
no matter where I live, I can’t seem to figure out
where to go that doesn’t mistreat people who don’t look like me
notwithstanding needing to report at least one company to the fedeeral trade commission
every
day
for violating my
disability rights.
a BLM friend once reflected
It’s like they can’t even see you’re
white
when you’re in that wheelchair
something to be said for being able to leave my house after sundown, though
i cant do that anymore, but i could until 2025
so at least i remember
Please, anything but the truth. No one wants to hear that.
