“Mask Fashion”
Through scarlet crypts
of poinsettias
this beloved headdress
turns a threadbare page, a flint mark
to blow this blouse
another story for your years
another sash,
another primrose, marked one
chalet and lipstick, goblins
tantamount to nothing
abandoned swing sets,
bubblegum in your hair
for this the angelic
coals with their wings
a rare promise
with the rise of your belabored health
belabored breathing
at last the mentally cured cyclone
rinse with me.
“Questions?”
Why are you so far away?
What ails you?
Where have all our children gone?
Are there pewter tulips?
A joy from the past keeps shaded,
stays alive,
wrings jewels and nips from bent towels.
Weather may come to cast,
and yet this ailing is a missing you,
a supplanted grove,
a cool and warm desire
is what ails you,
a tinker box which rubs the dock
the green bottle of ale for you
because the forgotten is heartbroken
but the joy is safe.
“…”
He ate a can of tuna fish at lunch
in the shed where we laughed spilt sides
his mom was a drunk
she showed up in her bathrobe one day
pissed flames beside her car
oblivious of us
somehow maybe the cocky
might turn to sparrows
be free at last of us and all the chins
or maybe he stopped eating tuna fish
directly from the can
maybe he went down his own dark road
down on his lucky own tuned knees
his touch of certainty a stretch
his youth a pissed ant
his smile the friend of a shadow.
“Nobody Gets to be A Poet”
At the mill town
toffee by a tossed hand in stained glass
coffee by the midst of mornings
these are your purse’s strings
covered by the overalls of oil
to come on time at once at peace teatime
on my bread delivery
they say it was the river killed you
we lie in a bed of blue roses
in music you felt something natural
it was in the way you arched your back, broken strength is being afraid
your spiritual own home
baked in bread
with the insects of girlhood
because of something you said or hid.
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