Poetry
Image by Mathieu Odin
For Unsplash+
Cosmetic Concern
A faint waxing half moon of pink has risen
temporarily (I hope) where I gouged
my forehead on a painted hook screwed
into the door upon which to hang a holiday wreath,
which, in a week’s time has faded to white flecks
that slough off like a snake’s skin to leave
my face’s high level pristine and proud
to present to any public eye and audience,
the pain’s divot now sunk along with the fear
of permanent scar though a glow of suffused
blood may raise the anxiety of a subtle
memento of the careless drop to sharp-steel
level, a prong, a prick to recall when attempting
to dip the body into dim reaches where reside
the unyielding so perhaps a faint bloom better
than none unnoticed by most, and if not then only
believed a passing flush of surface significance,
no need for any to recognize this possible
crescent celled and tissued against any waning
as everlasting, unblinking guard
Sufficient Fate
“Always washing down your food!”
would grampa censure if the opportunity
arose—when he caught sight of a tipping
glass following a swallow at a holiday table
of descendants—as if a crime of conspicuous
consumption—his duty to damn as a man
deprived of a father in a child’s age so checked
in desire, checked from necessity and superfluity,
saliva sufficient for downing the bite in his strict
division between need and luxury—and the ancient
dictate not to exceed the former since one’s staff may
suddenly break under blind wheels
(as did his under those of a city trolley)
leaving the innocent at a loss and disadvantage,
subject to privation, even from milk or cheaper water,
better to be shepherded against a horrid event
that might strike against the steep odds
from whose potential crush he would defend
Never Considered
One of my labors is not to slay the tulip
bunch, whose red blooms bob in number
like the hydra’s self-regenerating heads
Hercules had to sever then his sidekick sear
to prevent another fanged mouth growing
from the neck among the nine, approximately,
the number of jade stems in this bulbous
glass, sensitive to the breeze that lifts
and drops the vegetal flesh prolonged
in life by the held water that bends the light
in bright afternoons of new spring
wearing into its warm middle, pulling
these bursts and stretches to desiccation
drawing them downward without any blow
and flaming brand to prevent rebirth
so any cruel efforts on my part unnecessary
not that I would entertain any notion
of a hero, killer of petals’ grace and stem