BellumLetters # 9

LIKE A LION

The lupine is so obvious
in its blue, not like asphodel
which is white and cold
and smells like death.
Not like us who pretend
to forget this is the betting
list, the get. The odds
are our way of pretending.

April is the mime forging
outlines: apple, machine
gun, stray letters in the slug-
gutter. Clone of our dotted
lines: mirrors untethered
and let to roam sinew
and gravel, the slow roads
we build away from home.

Only the still patience
of the toys compares
to our games with glue and paper.
Let's forget it's spring -- say
the ash on the air
is actually snow.
Winter is the mother
of invention; it buries us.