Published in The Heartland Review, Fall 22 issue, available for purchase:
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www.theheartlandreview.com/store
Shadow blades vibrate on sparkling asphalt edged
with squared bricks, holed for posts and wire that cordons
non-native leaves in light gravel beds
and black gloss signs, angled and engraved
with white lettering, suitable only
for the Latin fluent reader.
A leaking yellow hose fills a narrow channel
with a sparkle twist, making wet the footprints
of a disengaged daughter. Tight roping,
head down, lost in flagstone variants
and ravines and caves of disintegrated mortar,
in her storybook world, enthralled.
Her whispered slipstream catches the blue
flowers overhead. A stigma spirals down.
An exotic dust stains the faded sleeve
of this Latin illiterate,
sat between these stems that grow
where they were never meant to grow.
with squared bricks, holed for posts and wire that cordons
non-native leaves in light gravel beds
and black gloss signs, angled and engraved
with white lettering, suitable only
for the Latin fluent reader.
A leaking yellow hose fills a narrow channel
with a sparkle twist, making wet the footprints
of a disengaged daughter. Tight roping,
head down, lost in flagstone variants
and ravines and caves of disintegrated mortar,
in her storybook world, enthralled.
Her whispered slipstream catches the blue
flowers overhead. A stigma spirals down.
An exotic dust stains the faded sleeve
of this Latin illiterate,
sat between these stems that grow
where they were never meant to grow.