kindred blue forget me nots
that knot across the glen,
and tie around the willow's hands,
reminding it of when

the wind would sweep across,
make a dancing sea of gold
in the ditch along the path:
the bright marsh marigold.

on a northern shore, the air bites, even in june;

once, it was warm, but that is just a wish now. crouched in a chair,

I feel small raindrops brush over the pages of my book,

shaking as my stiff fingers flip through it on this slow day. This is the port where

the rich americans flock on their cruise, gold chained and wrapped in lovely fur coats,

while the people down here wear their thin uniforms and wake before dawn.

sitting as the scissors trim, hair falling to the floor all dark and wet,

I watch her twirl fragments into sections, watch the sharp, quick movements,

and I gaze, haphazardly, at the girl in the mirror

who sits within herself, makes faces when the brush pulls too hard, smiles slightly when our eyes meet,

and that is when I stop watching the hairdresser but her face instead,

that girl, my sister,

so beautiful and sweet.

Leucothea applies Bavarian cream

to her paired slit, tending to it with

the waning crescent of no moon.

as oval handheld mirrors base the

trim of their metals on the philosophy

of ornateness--perhaps Gold.

gripped by nymphs, whose fingers

flicker off when oceanic shatters

gurgle up from temple steps.

the pelicans swoop
in a sea of cloudless blue,
tethered to the sky.

the wind is a song
that bends those velvet petals
for the lips of bees