Fragile Foundations
My body often waits
Too long to tell me
That I’m tired.
I can carry a lot,
But it is usually the
Grain of sand that gets
Stuck beneath the second toenail of my
Left foot that causes me to fall.
Inevitably, something
Breaks.
The bones never heal right.
I’m left with crooked
Scars, splotched black and
Purple.
My bones are twisted and
Jagged. It is often
Hard to find
The beauty in it.
It is impossible to learn
From the mistakes caused
By carelessness.
Intention is a path
That is easier to
Trace.
Raven-Fonted Letters
The book from the pages,
Her first love, called to her,
Each raven-fonted letter,
Singing mysteries and coition
To her virginal mind, kissing the fruit—
Sweet conversation she read
And (imagining the people were existing)
She tore through the barrier
Of fantasy, pleading for the climax
To the plot
With deluge-like desperation.
Escape the jungle gym, dear child!
Find your way to the midsummer
Verses of Shakespeare. Her fingers
Can trace the pages of our fiction,
Curing our ill-tempered restlessness,
Our readiness to be free!
Similar to a tidal wave of birds,
The words flew by, fomenting
Her love’s second arousal.
There should always be time to read,
To think about the diamond
Luminescence of the writer’s mind,
To try to grab hold of the hero,
To hope to the bitter end.
Of course, with each sharp finish,
There is a longing for more.
The Sludge We Inherit
Father, your Texas steer has fallen
To black sludge infused with
Forever chemicals. Goldman-Sachs
Laughed at the “Don’t mess with Texas”
Bumper stickers as they spread PFAS
Fertilizer across the heartland.
At least one million acres have drunk
The muck that killed cows, caused
Cancers and developmental delays in
Children.
Don’t worry. These chemicals only last forever.
We, of course, have a shorter life span
To think about these woes.
So far, we are not dead. There is still time
To join the class action lawsuit and maybe
Receive enough to to buy a box of microwave
Popcorn, which also contains PFAS.
When the last cow dies, I will remember
Pandora, and the box she chose to open
In the name of science.
