Thursday, August 26, 2021

ELLIPSES

Summer's end 
in the park:
the open mouths 

of now-
exasperated May flowers
still asking—

what good is shape 

to the artist
without color?

Could the length 
of life matter 

more than the impact? 


Given the tendency 
I have to keep 

cropping up 
in sentences,

I have begun 
to suspect 
I can 

out-quip
my own death.

*

For every toss 
that just feels wrong, 

there comes 
a semi-
righteous turn—

a neutron 
drips radiation, 

converts 
to a proton; 

you squirm 
in your dreams, 

as if trying 
to escape them, 

but always
relate them 

in first-
person narration.