Youth fades.
Age requires safety.
Youth skates on the highway.
No lesson required
for popping
wheelies.
Age forgets the need for speed
embraces greed
loses patience,
and adopts the right to complain
of aches and pains –
to be a patient.
Think I’ll go pop a wheelie
and a bottle of wine.
See the explosion.
Be the cause.
Mimic youth and bravery.
Holly’s had enough
She sighs and arches closer
to the doorway
Her berries no longer speak
of gifts and glamour
She’s just a mess of red
Spiked leaves a
nd branches
weighted down with white.
Destroy these days of isolation
Skinny months of streaming nonsense
and fighting traffic snarls
on my Netflix que
Honeyed teas might sooth
but I want ice-picks
muscles pounding hard
Scrape my windshield
Burn my frozen doors
Wipe the bloody needles
buried under Holly’s feet.
The sweat of his efforts, a rain
Tugging the world to fruit. – Sylvia Plath
We glisten
as we dig
creating holes
wishing for magic
for germination
for growth
Sweat pools
at the center
of my chest
Drops of salt
embracing
lace and wire
My daughter says
porcelain is matte
I tell her
everything shines
when viewed
through water
I tossed them in the pyre to roast and boil and I don’t need to visit that place again. The pain and blisters do no good, so why shouldn’t I just face the wall and slam my head up on it. That would be safer than reliving my life’s tribulations. Why do I write this side by side stuff anyway? To put my pain and pleasure on the page, to sway you to my politics of dancing and feeding birds who attack me for my bread? Would you like some bread? I enjoy garlic bread but then no one wants to talk to me and your black tee keeps sprouting chest hairs in my peripheral. Why do I keep powdering my look for when we meet again; clinging naked to my assumptions. And you walked right past me tonight without even saying hello. Oh wait. That was me. I left before you had the chance. I didn’t want your conversation interrupted by my presence, or my sweetness interrupted by your sour. That wall you leaned on turned to face me. I’m leaving now to move backwards, sideways, and return to this loop of never ending whatevers.
