“Whatever Could Make this Follow”
Pass into the seams of your house
puss into those flowers:
a trickster with thick glasses
becomes another shadow
a fox barks, tipping his elf hat
we were warm and tidy
and so time sped us by
not even time for the hangmen’s
clean linen licked suit
the slit of a thousand burrs
because we’re scared
we had to pee together
we hid there a thousand times
and all marshaled a phenomenal evening
back when we slept deeply,
tilled soils deeply,
tomorrowed to the heavens deeply
the stars’ phantoms for you
the ridge of a cage,
sometimes a blue jay,
a cardinal in snow
they hatched you in a locket,
an alien being’s carcass,
once spurned in military regalia
at a shotgun wedding
between mutant forces,
the three-headed shark
and electricity beast,
emerging on our realm,
long enough to flash a picture
with a memory blade to prove she exists, boatswain of darkness,
stranger in mint,
to octopus girls
as if someday
you’d be a famous scientist
filled with dinosaur blood
could ruin this winter’s
soul’s solicitors
we were inchoate
inside a scalding teapot
at a witch’s house
whether your whims deceive you
blind lemons for blondes
whatever could make this follow.
nicholauspatnaude 
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