Crossing the Sea of Kansas

A day's blue rain, small angels gather in the trees,
a piece of tin flies off the barn, a cold spring moon
in an old sky, starlings fly down to grab straw
for their nests, honey clings to the edge of a knife,
money asleep in a wallet in a dusty part of town,
spectacles and poisons in the window of the narrow store,
jars of triangular seeds, smiles at odd angles reflected,
slow movements of clouds as they cross the Sea of Kansas
like chairs in the river, vertical and nonchalant.
The sailors insist they smell lilacs,
one man's arm is green with names of girls and cities
and a picture of the devil dancing with a smiling pig.
If there's more than one child in the womb they say
they'll fight with each other and kiss through their time.
Alone you come in curved and blind, they say
you drift like a cloud, you bring your distance with you.


Robert Gregory | Mudlark No. 17
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