the weight

and what's riding on it's
back

the amount of money that
clatters

crinkles jingles
and changes hands

all of this

coupled with the risk
and the fear  

of one man's loss
being

the wrong man's
gain

Whit Howland © 2020

Love hours.
When you cover your
face with hands,
light dims.

I enter your interocular
space, to understand the
truth ofdissent.

I am learning
from you about the black
theory. You wanted to-
take titanic steps
in small feet.

Human facts.
I cannot breathe.
You possess the power of
manipulation.

A bird doesn't know.

Five powerful privet hedges formed
a fence in our front yard in New York.
My mother planted them for some
reason, known only to her.

The branches grew sparse and suffered.
Failure to thrive.  Knee high to my
twelve year old body, it never bloomed
in that yard of green weeds and dandelions.

It was meant to keep the
dogs away.  We had feral cats
in the yard.  My brother and I
were feral.  My mother bred us
into the wind of 1940's Chicago.

So that was that for her.  She
retreated into madness from
Chicago to New York to
South Bend.

Fences, like my mother's
addictions, are not always seen.
They crawl up your leg like
flakes of hate.  They keep growing
until your eyes are holes in the
twigs.

A fence so thick you think
only prayers will let you out.
Easter Sunday blooms in
the trailers and filaments.

No relief.  They scratch
on your so small soul.  White
privet petals crawl into crevice
and crease.  

I no longer itch but
tic with the rhythm
of the seasons.


Caroline Shank

It were not you
at the end of poem. Something
of moon had died.

Time has not come
to intervene in parting
of lips turning blue.

You will not change,
in offering the drink of
stunning Venus flytrap.