When Morn Purples the East
Blow over shoulder blades callous wind.
God I
see some unmoored
vessel
bobbing over the bay.
God I
shut my blinds.
Grey
skies morn purple.
The east coast and its
cold weather Protestantism
migrates through my mind.
God my
soul, untethered, floats
inverted
toward northern peaks.
God I
see distant shore
birds
torturing a crab.
The desire inside to inflict
undue suffering for its own
sake. We can feel the tight pull
from the
dark in the forest.
Tie them down, hack them to bits.
Find a moment of reprieve to begin
again.
Again, the soft thuds. The world ends on an
alter,
again.
No ram behind distant peak.
Blood, uncurled. Flags sink atop their masts.
I God I
split thread, terrible time-future.
The reservoir cannot hold this much blood.
The bay is bubbling over.
I cannot walk along the beach
without bleeding my shoes.
Sleep. Sleep.
Stay in bed as the
Purpling,
Purpling,
covers waters deep and wide.
Re-God, I God.
Half-space
Whiter than that which is without,
a pail of well-water with
a dead frog sunk to the bottom.
Here on the frozen branch, an oriole —
Beyond the horizon line, never-ending —
From around the bend whiter this winter —
Mittens as earlier as October will
hang from a hook on the porch.
I’ll sit in a rocking chair —
yes
I
will,
eat apple pie and sip cider this season.
What’s your wish? More kids?
Within reason, my God!
I am still recovering from a rotten molar.
By the way,
if you haven’t noticed, the caulk under our windowsill is cracking.
I will need to run to MR. FIX IT: YOU CAN FOR HALF THE PRICE! ™
after I’m done
selling kitchen-ware to the tight-faced women
by the community college.
By the way,
do you still have that cardboard box?
The one with your wedding dress in it?
ANDREW HUTTO writes out of Louisville, KY. He was recently awarded third place in the 2020 Flo Gault Poetry Prize. Presently he serves on the Pine Row Press editorial board. His work appears or is forthcoming in Thrush Poetry Journal, Eunoia Review, Plum Tree Tavern, Amethyst Review, The Weekly Degree, Cathexis Northwest Press, Barnhouse Journal, After the Pause, Math Magazine, and Poet Lore. For more information see andrewhutto.org
Twyckenham Notes 