Love is like a tree
The longer you let it grow
The more beautiful it becomes
On the outside
And the stronger it becomes
On the inside

Never trust someone
Who doesn't like music


- Hardian Veska

Some are lissome, jowly,
blossomed or pocked,  teeth

of old horses—eyes white as flour,
a few clubfoot with sisters

pregnant as October gourds.  Not
Norman Rockwell’s Americans,

but they are us and live in lopsided
bungalows with leaky roofs,

heaved sidewalks, bare
refrigerators.

You have slaughtered my kind without
justification and planted red mums
to line the new concrete sidewalk
to your church; Sundays,
as you traipse our roots
we will listen to your
sanctimonious
secrets.

.
                                       f
                              i      i   e       i
                            e       n  d        e
                           n          f            n
                          d         i     e        d
                          f        n       d        f
                          i         f        g        f
       ­                    e         n    d        e
                             n          f          n
                                 d    "I"       d

.
                                       t
                               e     e s       e
                             s        t s          s
                            t           i             t
                           s         t     e         s
                           i         t       t         i
                            t          e   s         t
                               e         t         e  
                                 s       s       s
                                      t       t