by Shannon Laws
I am the grass. Let me work
writes Sandburg
Grass fixes a battlefield with memory loss
Pile up your second-hand mistakes
bodies of unfinished work
blood of sacrificed Saturday nights
onto this field and wait—
two years, ten
Time heals but grass covers all.
Bushes of death-berries near the bus stop begged me to take their picture last week. Branches whip their winter fruit, heavy at the end, as proud as a child holding summer’s vanilla cone. Proud they are plump, ready for the eating, stiff sticks shake nervous in the morning fog—
Remember us, this field of us!
Poking out in clusters, brillo-pad raisined blackberries sleep alongside winter’s bleached fruit. The field is a young girl’s hair needing a wash and comb.
A week later the corner is stamped mud-brown
a chocolate square cake decorated with a yellow back-hoe.
I missed the pulls and yanks at the knots,
the discovery of a chrome bumper, a smashed
burn barrel and two pickle buckets.
When did this happen?
I never got to say goodbye.
~by SPL
shannon p. laws 