Bowl of Light - The Argotist Online

cloisonné
What on earth does that
have to do with anything art can say
when art says anything at all it
tends to echo from tinny speakers
smelling like the rotting foam they shed,
motion is entropic too, muscles
flexing in the friendly confines
of this second-run buck-a-day
theater of the mind and if you
could see them fall you would remember
where you and yours, sitting cloistered
volunteer peonies,
the edge of the orchard,
used to sit and sway,
the game
the game, was
to match the movement of the delicate heads
bent low under the sun
dropping ants for you to burn
that was long ago of course
but yesterday too, and now
when the winds blow, was
it real or not, you still have the sunburn
doesn't that mean the cost of childhood
is written in the scars on knees
the scent memory locomoting through
this house your head and the oil spill
behind the Red Lobster leaves peculiar messages
only translated in the moment
and saved for a later that never comes
a hidden treat in the bottom of that winter coat.