They laid me to rest in verdant climes.

The Forest Lady was lush in Summer.

At Summer's end, her hair blazed with Fall

Palettes. Of a winter, her ice-covered arms

Glimmered overhead while her silent

White carpets rolled to frozen cathedrals.

Cindy knelt at her bedstand, clutching a rosary.

She whispered a prayer for the downtrodden,
and for the Sisters of Mercy who'd raised her
in the Angel Guardian Orphanage.

Light flickered, the kitchenette's fluorescent tube,
bleeding through the gaps in her bedroom door.

She yanked a shade string, her eyes narrowing
as a patrol car's lamps strobed the window.

Outside the murk of her Greenwich Village flat,
neon reflected in rain puddles; a rat scurried
down a gutter drain.

Twenty years before, she'd slept with Artie Shaw.
She was a moll with a mouth full of pearls,
walking where she pleased, shopping 5th Avenue:
her flaming red hair, a smatter of freckles
on her porcelain broach complexion.

Cindy touched her face, reliving the horror
of the shotgun stock that ruined her looks.
She'd known better than to toy with a mob boss's son.
But she'd let him pursue her until a love triangle
ended his life and brought the father's revenge.

She brought the crucifix to her lips,
whispered goodbye, then reached for
the pistol in her bedstand's drawer.

Conrad, you old schooner, sent from your cove,

Of souls, your hero braved an ocean, then

Drifted past a shoal. Now, landing on a

Shanghaied beach, he trekked into the wasteland,

Where choking plumes of ash rained hard upon

The columns. And death did pause to taste the

Seeds, the woe, and rank of slaver's greed, then

Pandered his familiars breathe, charnel

Vapors from its salt mines.

Winter has come and gone, and I
watch the sun through pixelated
eyes.

Gliding on mildew and
mite-pungent litter, I head for
the Old Mill Pond.

I stop to linger in the shade
of mushroom caps, watching
children collect tadpoles at the
pond's edge.

The caps rain spores that stick and
spoil my ooze—Ah, a toxicity that
bloodworms and mephitic termites
find unpalatable.

Thus, I am free to sip the
aphids gathering around me.

What good is your promise,

You've gone to time's lagoons.

We splashed in ankle surf,

And tugged a sinking kite.

What was that prayer you whispered

In twilight’s arctic desert,

Where the raging of your storms died

Beneath the August moon?

What good are your echoes,

Your shells forswore their tide pools.

Your gift of raptured pearls

Lie squandered on a winter beach.

And when you took your leave,

So thoughtless through that darkest gate.

With hammered copper on your eyes,

You spent your mother's heart.

Then led her down those dour halls,

So guiltless in her mortal shame.

To rue the sunrise of each day

And weep upon her daughter's grave.

Switch let out a doggish yelp and

Leaped to join his master. They both

Wound up in barbwire as we

Clattered down the track.

It was me who pushed Lea on the ties

And Jake, who kicked his dog and

Both of us what spooned his beans and

Smoked up his tobacco.

And then we tore Lea’s bedroll.

But there was nothing left to steal.

Cause all that he had left was a

Picture of his Ma.

For my final act of meanness, I tossed

That picture out the door then wallowed

In my discontent, cause God was

There and judged us.

And then we laid in straw corners, mewling

Over Lea’s Crooked teeth, his shuffling

Gait and his Faithful mutt. I knew that we’d

All burn in Hell.

But he'd tasked our generosity.

At fifteen, your sepulcher was nearly
complete, dear lover, slabs of immutable
granite set in place with your premonition,
with the diligence of your lovely hands, then
christened with your morbidity.

At thirty, you brought out the worst in me,
living, then dying in the place you’d
grown to despise, your stiletto heels set aside
while tiptoeing away on shifting shale, with
runs in your fine silk stockings.

The years have passed, dear lover. Your letters
have yellowed with antiquity, yet still, I wait
at your Orphean gate, pondering our jeweled
romance and the bludgeoned rodents of our
cellars.