ISSUE: Spring 2009
Nutsedge, smutgrass, clover.
Next to the knuckle, nicked and scratched, the wedding band
convexes the face looking back.
How much longer will this beauty of yours last?
Like a brass rubbing, mud furrows the fine lines:
On the palm, train trestles to a future arriving sooner every day.
On the back, constellations of pigment and marionette ligaments that
play emperor, casting buffalo grass against
the forked tongue of Bermuda.
Could you recognize noxious weed on the easy road? Purge
hard clusters of dread?
Spurge is a recurrent argument, every ransack spills
a thousand lime green questions.
Do you have the patience to untangle
the cumbering nexus, to pull up spurge whole
like a brittle sea star?
Recursive weeding; two mirrors face one another in the brain.
Would you tire of the infinite field
if it were your life laid down before you?
Beaten hand, pentagram of scars,
yes, I would,
arthritic with desire to start anew.
