Mine
Karen R. Porter
It wasn't what they promised me.
The sky was not the sky blue true
of the Saturdays in little songs,
peony dawns unpetaling dreams,
their pastel borders melting
into green hills, fields, to sink
down to a perfect torquoise sea
without waves, only the gentlest undulations.
And on the shore, birds bright as suns
would dance from tree to tree.
This is a cold inflection or a snag,
an unmilled seed in crunchy bread,
a rude surprise caught fast in teeth
forcing its captors to make room,
a pile of dead crows, their shiny feathers
catching the light at perfect angles,
shocking my eyes with exposed bone.
It is the smell of something dead,
deliberately unburied, meant to be found.
And here you are, the only thing I've got.
Serenity
Karen R. Porter
Poles shift allegiance
inside the catatonic box.
Air whispers as it floats
by the ever-open door
drifting by the hollow head,
dropping love notes
on the pillow.
They flutter
against cardboard cheeks,
rasping slightly.
No outrage of movement
to ever mar the lovely form.
parasite
Karen R. Porter
they say
some of your poisons
leak into the system
like a tick
spreading lyme disease
or rocky mountain spotted fever
but i always thought of you
as a mosquito
hitting sharp and fast
a smash and grab
before flying off
with your blood-filled belly
pink and puffy
happy to infect us with
west nile virus
or malaria
Gems
Karen R. Porter
Beetles
scamper through grass
like fairies cloaked in jewels,
aquamarine and glittering
June bugs.
Untitled
Karen R. Porter
december -
vultures basking
at the lake
january
Karen R. Porter
snow
stained with
dirty road
& piss
it requires
fortitude
a constitution
tough as hiking
on the moon
Untitled
Karen R. Porter
Grackles -
sorcerers' birds
mob in winter. Smoky
swathes from ten thousand wings paint the
sky black.
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