Lament

What would I give to be a vein on the side of the red maple whose leaves tremble in the wind? I want to be plucked like that again, tuned to singing. The bees stumble into the storm door and later, there are clumps of yellow, tracks the color of fenugreek or pine bombs or birch. Little pools by the road film over with pollen, daubed thick as paint. The light can hardly strike where all this matter congeals. I cannot ignore it. I cannot turn away. I want to scour every pot I own until each grainy bottom reflects a face which used to match the corona of blue flame heat for heat, glare for glare. Every now and then I crave the iron taste of swamp spinach, the thin scraps that tether marrow to the inside of bone. Something true, unapologetic; something that doesn’t merely settle into the background, fade into the atmosphere, trick you into thinking this is all there can be, and nothing more.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.