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It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,
And like a strayed and wandering reveller
Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
For fear of too much splendour,—ah! methinks it is a place

Which should be trodden by Persephone
When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!
Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
The hidden secret of eternal bliss
Known to the Grecian here a man might find,
Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.

There are the flowers which mourning Herakles
Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine,
Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze
Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine,
That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve,
And lilac lady’s-smock,—but let them bloom alone, and leave

Yon spired hollyhock red-crocketed
To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee,
Its little bellringer, go seek instead
Some other pleasaunce; the anemone
That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl
Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

Their painted wings beside it,—bid it pine
In pale virginity; the winter snow
Will suit it better than those lips of thine
Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go
And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,
Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.

The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus
So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet
Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous
As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet
Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar
For any dappled fawn,—pluck these, and those fond flowers which
are

Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon
Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis,
That morning star which does not dread the sun,
And budding marjoram which but to kiss
Would sweeten Cytheraea’s lips and make
Adonis jealous,—these for thy head,—and for thy girdle take

Yon curving spray of purple clematis
Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King,
And foxgloves with their nodding chalices,
But that one narciss which the startled Spring
Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard
In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer’s bird,

Ah! leave it for a subtle memory
Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun,
When April laughed between her tears to see
The early primrose with shy footsteps run
From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold,
Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering
gold.

Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet
As thou thyself, my soul’s idolatry!
And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet
Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry,
For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride
And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.

And I will cut a reed by yonder spring
And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan
Wonder what young intruder dares to sing
In these still haunts, where never foot of man
Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy
The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.

And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears
Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan,
And why the hapless nightingale forbears
To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone
When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast,
And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.

And I will sing how sad Proserpina
Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed,
And lure the silver-breasted Helena
Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,
So shalt thou see that awful loveliness
For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss!

And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale
How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,
And hidden in a grey and misty veil
Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun
Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase
Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.

And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,
We may behold Her face who long ago
Dwelt among men by the AEgean sea,
And whose sad house with pillaged portico
And friezeless wall and columns toppled down
Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet cinctured town.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile,
They are not dead, thine ancient votaries;
Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile
Is better than a thousand victories,
Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo
Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few

Who for thy sake would give their manlihood
And consecrate their being; I at least
Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,
And in thy temples found a goodlier feast
Than this starved age can give me, spite of all
Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.

Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,
The woods of white Colonos are not here,
On our bleak hills the olive never blows,
No simple priest conducts his lowing steer
Up the steep marble way, nor through the town
Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.

Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,
Whose very name should be a memory
To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest
Beneath the Roman walls, and melody
Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none can play
The lute of Adonais:  with his lips Song passed away.

Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left
One silver voice to sing his threnody,
But ah! too soon of it we were bereft
When on that riven night and stormy sea
Panthea claimed her singer as her own,
And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk
alone,

Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy
Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring
The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,

And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,
And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot
In passionless and fierce virginity
Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute
Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,
And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.

And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,
And sung the Galilaean’s requiem,
That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine
He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him
Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,
And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,
It is not quenched the torch of poesy,
The star that shook above the Eastern hill
Holds unassailed its argent armoury
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight—
O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,
Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,
With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled
The weary soul of man in troublous need,
And from the far and flowerless fields of ice
Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.

We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,
Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,
How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,
And what enchantment held the king in thrall
When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers
That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,

Long listless summer hours when the noon
Being enamoured of a damask rose
Forgets to journey westward, till the moon
The pale usurper of its tribute grows
From a thin sickle to a silver shield
And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy field

Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,
At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come
Almost before the blackbird finds a mate
And overstay the swallow, and the hum
Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,
Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,

And through their unreal woes and mimic pain
Wept for myself, and so was purified,
And in their simple mirth grew glad again;
For as I sailed upon that pictured tide
The strength and splendour of the storm was mine
Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;

The little laugh of water falling down
Is not so musical, the clammy gold
Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town
Has less of sweetness in it, and the old
Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady
Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.

Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!
Although the cheating merchants of the mart
With iron roads profane our lovely isle,
And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,
Ay! though the crowded factories beget
The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!

For One at least there is,—He bears his name
From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,—
Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame
To light thine altar; He too loves thee well,
Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,
And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,

Loves thee so well, that all the World for him
A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,
And Sorrow take a purple diadem,
Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair
Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be
Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage
This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,
Being a better mirror of his age
In all his pity, love, and weariness,
Than those who can but copy common things,
And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

But they are few, and all romance has flown,
And men can prophesy about the sun,
And lecture on his arrows—how, alone,
Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,
How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,
And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.

Methinks these new Actaeons boast too soon
That they have spied on beauty; what if we
Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon
Of her most ancient, chastest mystery,
Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope
Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!

What profit if this scientific age
Burst through our gates with all its retinue
Of modern miracles!  Can it assuage
One lover’s breaking heart? what can it do
To make one life more beautiful, one day
More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay

Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth
Hath borne again a noisy progeny
Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth
Hurls them against the august hierarchy
Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust
They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must

Repair for judgment; let them, if they can,
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,
Create the new Ideal rule for man!
Methinks that was not my inheritance;
For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul
Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.

Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away
Her visage from the God, and Hecate’s boat
Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day
Blew all its torches out:  I did not note
The waning hours, to young Endymions
Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!

Mark how the yellow iris wearily
Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed
By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,
Who, like a blue vein on a girl’s white wrist,
Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night,
Which ‘gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light.

Come let us go, against the pallid shield
Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam,
The corncrake nested in the unmown field
Answers its mate, across the misty stream
On fitful wing the startled curlews fly,
And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,

Scatters the pearled dew from off the grass,
In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun,
Who soon in gilded panoply will pass
Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion
Hung in the burning east:  see, the red rim
O’ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him

Already the shrill lark is out of sight,
Flooding with waves of song this silent dell,—
Ah! there is something more in that bird’s flight
Than could be tested in a crucible!—
But the air freshens, let us go, why soon
The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June!
Richmal Byrne Jan 2011
We don’t really understand

How atoms behave;

Or infinity;

Or how winds carry the seasons -

Like ‘Olde April ‘ with it’s 'showers sweet' !

Yes, I’ve felt them...



The clean stinging scent of rain

Scratching at the earth,

Pelting aromatic plants,

Condensing the smells of seas, winds, continents;

Infusing the sum of all these aromas in its perfumery,

Marketing it: April, again.



And Eliot said,

There be April,

'The cruellest month'.

Oh my (!)

Appealing April, with its sunny flavours,

Cascades of cats & dogs,

And dead-eye jack,

Firing frosts that just might spend the tender herb.



It was snowing in April,

And Easter was early, that year

When I took Schrödinger’s cat walking

On a leash, And April was still new,

And capable of shocking...



Now any month - could bring pitiless ruin.

The year annually

Out of step with migratory designs,

Throwing epithets out of its greenstick pram,

Its months in disarray ,

No-one knows what’s going on...





The drunkard earth sups up it’s own tears,

Reeling in its spin,

Until,

Saturated,

It can drink no more,

And every dip fills,

Every meadow spills,

Banks overflowing,

Its resolve drowning,

Questions washing

Up like a tide of interrogative curiosity.



OK – so I am really hiding in my acres...

At least I can tell - it’s April !



Enquiring lily-of-the-valley,

Puts up green periscopes.

Peering through the sodden grass,

The remnants of last year’s soggy leaves,

Cosset primrose & ramsons.

Daffodils are past their best, but soldier on

Like hungover squaddies,

Snowdrops have fat capsules where white drops shone,

Hellebores have been up since the crack of time -

Good movers - they could dance all spring!

Dingles are glinting green with native bluebell leaves,

And their mophead mates have muscled in the garden,

Quiet violets lounge on the field’s chaise long,

Coy, understated,

How British!

Oxlips and cowslips join the brave primroses

Who have been on the razzle for weeks.

White & purple lilac in green cassocks,

Will soon burst out

Like kiss-o-grams.

Boughs hung with clematis,

Still tiny shoots like birds on wires.



I am giving a prize for the first celandine on my patch;

Each little celandine - Rannunculus ficaria - is

A miniature sun uttering: Oi! You up there, old currant bun!

Here’s the template for a perfect summer sky !
April 2008
Jude kyrie Sep 2015
My Wildflowers

He has gone now.
And the world is less
for the loss of him.
When we met
he would only
bring me wildflowers.

Flowers that he knew
every name and variation.
Bluebell. Daisy aster
Cone flower celandine
Colts foot.
Every possible flower.
He knew them all.

Your dandelions have
Infested the gardens
Since you have been gone.
Blowing light feathered  seeds
Into the breath
of summer winds.

The children you gave me
Are scattered in the world
like wildflowers.
Blowing carefree and wild.
Rooting where they are happy.

People call my garden
a **** patch now.
But I love it
Just as I loved you
My wildflower
For the wild unbridled joy
You brought me.
Cali Mar 2013
but I've an inclination towards
laurels and violet,
celandine and foxglove;

the wildflowers you plucked
in the sunlight of our summers.
Erewhile, before the world was old,
When violets grew and celandine,
In Cupid's train we were enrolled:
            Erewhile!
Your little hands were clasped in mine,
Your head all ruddy and sun-gold
Lay on my breast which was your shrine,
And all the tale of love was told:
Ah, God, that sweet things should decline,
And fires fade out which were not cold,
            Erewhile.
k e i Aug 2020
the date reads november 18.

there's 6 days before our anniversary

-i think i've finally gotten it right now.



the air's crisp with that autumnal scent of dried leaves. the coffee’s what keeps me from losing the last of my grip on this cold morning, indifferent to the iciness of our early days i currently heed through.



my forgetfulness had its way of having us spiral down to endless fights-our anniversary was one thing for instance. petty back and forth bickerings resolved with my “i love you's” met with eyerolls failing to cover up the smile that slides it way on your face. heated stares and suffocating silences. “i'm sorry, i'll make it up to you's” soon lost its charm. conflicts hung with one of us walking out. compromises wavered, melted into emotionless pleas to end it all-us saying "**** it" to the rings glinting on our digitus quartus.



the day we've chosen to surrender it all true to life inevitably came, that september 7 five years ago. if i force myself to stop thinking about the specifics, i can brush it off as our homage paid to the same day i was first made known of your existence as you passed by me in the campus grounds, the day we scratched our angst upon a match box-little did we know it would become the same fuel that extinguishes all the embers we've lit aflame. that year winter followed but it simply couldn’t come up with blizzards raging with more cruelty.



autumns ago we gave up on being each other's stressors and stress reliever. we’ve turned out to be the boulder rolling on all the spaces we shared, flattening the dreams, the dayfalls, the vows we’ve exchanged and wherever it was that we’ve only quite reached the middle of;



our midpoint turned out to be our ending.





for so long this wondering nested in the crevices of my hollow. have we done or not done some small thing, done or undone it some other way, would the course of things have ran differently for us?



maybe they’ve been right all along,

and their fingers pointed to our temples were justly served.

maybe they were right and we were just two kids unsuspecting of just how much an involvement of forever would cost us.

such hasty entanglement, infinitely falling unto acts of impulses yet again.

maybe we should’ve saved all that trouble of gown and tux thrifting and cake tasting and tying the knot until the years proved ripe with stability.

you should've said “we should talk about this first.” instead when i got down on one knee five months after we’ve gotten our degrees.



you could have offered a spillage of precarious uncertainty instead of easily giving out that hearty yes, flinging us both on top of the world only to be mercilessly pulled six feet under, forced to breath still.

you would’ve stomped over the shards cut out of the shape of my heart but at least i’d eventually come with an acceptance. we wouldn’t have turned into ten years worth of grief.



i know you’ve always been born for higher things, always been on the lookout for greater pursuits. that’s what made me drawn to you in the first place after all. you were someone who knew where she was headed to despite the fuckedupness of all that surrounded you while i was some beaten down misguided boy who needed that pulling uprooting force of a direction.



maybe you should’ve gone off to medschool and i with working my way for a promotion before we dealt with rent and bills and threading on the line of what it truly meant to be parents.

i’ll always thank the heavens for having the thorns leave that part unharmed, our daughter cradled by peace, swaddled in the softest of petals, later on forging the steps where wildflowers bloom; it was only right we named her after one. celandine.



she’s got your doe eyes, the exact tinge of blue. i can see how much she looks up to you. she told me how she wants to be a doctor when she grows up the last time i picked her up from the place you both live in now. during the drive, she was humming to the chorus of that old nirvana song, you know, that one we repeatedly listened to. i couldn’t help but have my heart swell, nearly tearing up. it felt like a memory the three of us shared like her first nights at that house. her loud cries quieted down as you hummed that alt song into a lullaby. she’s very inquisitive for her age though she’s still yet to ask questions about us or why her parents don’t live or spend time together or why she only gets to see her dad during the weekends. but i think for a five year old she somehow understands.



i can imagine you scoffing, a cigarette dangling from your lips just like the old days where you’d light one whenever you couldn’t help but be annoyed. your belief that regret is stupid and what if’s take you to a drive to nowhere still stands strong. but baby for a long time the what if’s have kept me going, as with all my unhealthy coping mechanisms-when we peeled off the last of the wallpaper, pulled out our clothes from our shared closet, even still when i gunned my old corolla to ignition.



we lost it all.

to our fights. to their i told you so’s. to the vows we’ve memorized since our dates around the college park. to the milestones framed. to autumn and winter and spring and summer.



it's years later and we've managed to unstuck ourselves from the rubble this marriage has become like how adults are expected to deal with everything else this sorry excuse of a life hurls at. but hey, maybe you were right. maybe us separating was necessary to **** off the beasts that tore past the skins of our monsters in unison.



i know you don’t really regret any of it. i know what we’ve birthed from the sadness that trailed down our tailbones patterned from dysfunctional upbringings held out to be intentions pure, offered for a ravaging love. i saw it, felt it the years that led us to the altar and the years witnessed by those housewalls, those fall afternoons the three of us napped in the same room as a family.



there’s 6 days before our anniversary and i’ve finally got it right.

10 years too late.

forgive me for longing, but i think it’s only right that i make do with what was saved from the skeletal framework of bruised years;

the gold ring i’ve strung on a necklace.

the state magnets from our old refrigerator.

the photo album filled with pictures from that white sand beach on our honeymoon.

the pinstriped tie you made me wear on my first day at my third job.

even the way you used to hog the covers and how you’d tend to burn the breakfast eggs.



there’s six days before our anniversary and now, i’ve finally gotten it right.

10 years too late.





“our relics are still yet to meet their grave. but their epitaph would read happy anniversary”.
Sarina Apr 2013
A ritual, I shape an acacia from your flesh and blood –
the fluff rather concealed. So are we, though your insides decorate
a globe just shy of blonde cornfields.

Tomorrow, you can be the columbine’s milk,
split drops deserting her center: now a park of petals on the edge.

But I examine every exposed hipbone, your clavicles rosy by me –
there is something around a jonquil about this image
you spread so I can embrace you, answer coils like a telephone
and want as much far away as I would close up to flaxen.

Hand me a celandine capsule or periwinkle bow –
all of this tied in a knot, originated from a bend of your hair.
I have recollections and joy from imminent meadows, girl and boy.
Loosely based off of a line from one of John Moffatt's poems, who is one of my fellow poets on here and is extremely talented. Also, this makes more sense if you know a bit about the meaning of certain flowers.
nicholas ripley Jul 2014
Having skipped through fresh bloomings of
Lesser Celandine, feet numb to their shiny hearts;

one-foot-spanned the wild River Beal,
the other missed, trailed, became sodden.

Green eyes scanned, surveyed the horizon, with its path
to Gallows hill, so with one foot cold he ascended;

Tarmac pounded his heart, as words,
from god-knows-where, flushed synapses.

Perhaps it was the discord of former chains
ratting in the bleakness, crimes of dependencies

crying for release that swept his attention on the wind,
or a lapse into timeless genetics, coursing naturally.

He died up there, left a ghost on a former gibbet,
then descended to the Beal's banks of Yellow Flag Iris.

June 2014
nomiddlename Oct 2018
curling confetti
   litters like cleavers
      ‘neath ***-bound lungs
outgrowing his ribcage
     she shoots
           unrestrained
                rambling t’ward
         a celandine sun
Broadsky Jul 2021
1, 2, 3
There was you and me

4, 5, 6
your colorful bag of tricks

7, 8, 9
we'd share a bottle of wine.

These are the memories that send chills up my spine.

You were acid,
I was alkaline.

I used to pick the petals off a celandine, hoping
"maybe he'll choose me this time."

I thought our love to be phantasmagoric,
when in fact it was hardly auric.

leave it to me to always be metaphoric.

You impacted me in ways I can't describe

please believe me when I say this isn't my diatribe.

this is me trying my best to transmogrify.

my original stimuli,

you have no idea what you signified,

but

This is me trying my hardest to say goodbye.
numbers were always your thing
The wood lay quiet as I passed
those thin wan trees in semi dark
their twigs are missing due to lack of light
they stretch up high to see the sky
a chorus group in brown
perhaps atop they have some leaves
when it is summertime

but now they're entertained
by flowers of blue and yellow celandine
when winters gales take hold
they're made like instruments to knock and crack
or through their branches
winds create a sound of mystery
aeolian harp  

I do not know
but when I stand and sense their presence close
they seem to whisper peace to me
those strands of coloured trunks
and so I meditate in line
as if I too were one of them
on the fence inclined

Margaret Ann Waddicor 7th April 2016
I had to go through this little wood, leaving the road with its rushing cars, sensing the stillness of these trees in contrast, and it was just before doing Tai Chi, it seemed to fit the mood.
Paul Hansford Jul 2016
The trees are coming into leaf;
the sap is pressing through the wood.
Violets, suspending disbelief
in spring, reveal now one by one
flowers of self-defining hue;
while butterflies with purple sheen
on flimsy wings try out the sun;
the sky's a half-forgotten blue.
Brash celandine invades the beds,
covers brown earth with green and gold;
bold daisies dare to show their heads.
The grass puts on a different green
and grows apace - I knew it would
(when was it mowed last? I forget)
and tangled branches really should
be pruned, but I've not got the heart
to execute or amputate;
in this profusion, who'd be so cold?
Though some day soon I'll have to start
(my neighbours think I've left it late)
I won't rush in and then regret -
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
The first and last lines are borrowed from poems by established poets, but all the rest is me.  The rhyming is irregular, similar to the style Eliot used in Portrait of a Lady.  If you're interested in the technical side, the rhythm is iambic tetrameter.
Maggie Sorbie Apr 2017
The bridge is still bouncy
The water calm and clear
Horses’ hoofprints churned the grass
Bright yellow star-shaped Celandine
Bluebells and Wood Sorrel
Shoals of fish
Delighting people
Gathering sky,
heavy folds of white and linen grey
wrap the day,
tight in a nettle scented breeze
a blanket with no escape
song birds call, sharp to each other
hidden in the hedgerow
where the cow grass grows
thigh high by the gate,
pierced by spears
of meadowsweet and celandine
and so we wait to look for rain
allthough the weather may turn fine
who knows which way the season blows
in British summer time
Elsie Feb 2021
out back behind the convenience-grocery is a house. it is in a row of
other houses. they are older than the town’s inception. with gnarled tiles and weathered stucco, they wait as the valley reaches up to hug their narrow bases. it will reclaim them. one day.

out back behind the convenience-grocery is a kid. he has curly hair that frames his gaunt complexion. he has a smile that belays nausea. he has a little sister who begs him to stop. he does not. he will not until he has killed the moon.

out back behind the convenience-grocery is a forest. it is older than the valley’s naming. there are houses with crumbling chain-link fences that the forest guards. there are peach trees, and cherry clearings, and walnuts bathing in patches of nettle. there is yarrow and goldenrod and wild carrot. there is chickweed and horehound and the blood of a planet. there is celandine and thistle and the skeleton of a long deceased celestial body.

out back behind the convenience-grocery is a popsicle. it melts in the evening sun. sugar dripping onto moss. there is a little sister that it melts into. it runs down her forearms and onto the bones of a moon. she does not mind. she tosses the wooden stick over the fence. she makes a wish as it flies into the arms of a corpse.

— The End —