With Delicate Hand

Never instead put the bales in the bounty,

resize the type to provide ALLURE.

Look how the picture seems to tell a story.

Mother, I’m all dolled up in HOPE.

My breastplate hinge needs a little oil,

I’m hobbling along to kick your crutch.

Mother, I’m all doped up with DESIRE.

I’ve cleaned the machine with delicate

hand, scrubbed the data within an inch of its life.

Mother, I’m all diary today, feeling PENSIVE.

The returns keep disappearing, I can’t get my hands

around even one. I keep clicking through

the channels, the links, little vortex

displays all the characteristics of a MOTIVE,

Mother, but someone’s just reported

that the election has been made OFFICIAL.

The results seem promising. In one version

you get to keep the crown. The twin diamonds

sparkling your eyes sparkle harder, the LIGHT

takes on a decadence like that of old snow.

In the other, your garland consumes itself,

your hair falls out like nuclear, your elisions

lisp the windows shut, breaking the view

in half. Your face becomes but a VAGARY

and there are no backups in storage. I AM

a cosmos if I am still breathing. Wind breaks

at my neck and spells your name acrostically.

Spells your name like my BELOVED. Repetition

of facts and figures keeps me apprised. Dogs

mass in the streets, shaking bones, slurping scrap

lifted from the MALFEASANCE of silver plates

hung to dry from row house clotheslines,

the tread’s worn down on the spires sagging

from the GLORIOUS peaks of this great sky!

Can you hear the clicking through the air vents?

Did you notice the picture twitch on the bedroom wall?

Leaves turn pink and blue, SUPERNATURAL

is not dead, is rippling through me, I can feel

my toes, I can see you staring at my nape,

I can see you vivid in the dark corner of the day,

taking your damask gown off one strap

at a time, as if I were watching. I have a MANDATE.

Nobody else would bother to see you this way.

Source: Palm Trees (The Green Lantern Press, 2012)