Life is Flowers
Life is flowers
In a plot of dirt
With small stones around them
In a rugged circle
And you and I
Stand outside of the fence
Where the flowers exalt the sun,
Their green arms extended upward
In their plot of dirt
With small stones around them
In a rugged circle.
You and I look into that place
Impossibly bright and green
And red and gold
From our asphalt spot
And we see the flowers that exalt the sun
With their green arms extended upward
In their plot of dirt
With small stones around them
In a rugged circle
And the flowers look like lovely young men and women
Exalting God and the sun
And once in a while a breeze catches their scent
And brings it to us
And there we stand, smelling the flowers that look like lovely young men and women
Exalting God and the sun
With their green arms extended upward
In their plot of dirt
With small stones around them
In a rugged circle
From our impossible distance
Outside that fence.
Cupped Hands
I kept trying to hold you in my cupped hands
and most of you spilled through the spaces
because you are thinner than water most of the time.
What little of you I could hold onto
I splashed on my face
and you danced in my hair, clung to my eyebrows,
ran giggling down my shoulders,
dampened the down of my chest.
Soon enough you had evaporated,
not even cooling my skin anymore.
I looked into my cupped hands where I once held
but a small pool of you,
each palmar crease tingling with memory and loss,
a giddy little jolt of arousal and joy
still pulsing up and down,
up and down the heart line.
John Tustin has poetry forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Trailer Park Quarterly, Blue Unicorn and others. His first poetry collection is available from Cajun Mutt Press. He is also a previous contributor to Sparks of Calliope. Find links to his poetry published online here.
Sparks of Calliope 