It is black. You are an acrobat, flipping,
forming, slick as a blade of grass.
Outside, it is gray. My tongue unrolls
dry, a limp flag in the storm’s eye.
My wrist, my face puffs. Biscuits.
I lay here sucking the thick syrup
that makes the walls curlicues, snakes.
A ladle lays in the bowl of the sky.
This is the only light above the wheat,
the sound of cold steel freight
barreling north into a pinpoint. Inside,
the lamp is an inchworm yawning.
I sit under sixty watts sipping darjeeling.
The sack of tea leaves floats, yolk in the mug.
The sycamores are successful strippers.
Naked, they shudder through the fringe
of my bangs. The new moon has no breast
to leak its milk onto branches. They stay
dark strands of hair, frozen mid-jump.
They have no sap. Like parasites of the ground,
they wait for mercy. For spring’s juice.
Photo By: LadyDragonflyCC
