Cool Sin

Cool Sin

He rolled a tattered old davenport
off a bridge to the creek bed's core.
Leveled it with washed up logs,
made soft cushions from the clouds.
Poured a whiskey, set up camp
on mossy rocks to watch the fish,
their passing fins reflecting stars
like jewels in unsettled prongs.
His skin a heap of muslin shirred,
sweat the scent of summer rain.
Dogwood blossoms floated down-
their ivory fists so lightly clenched
they could be open envelopes.

Wind tickled like a paintbrush
skimming rising grass, cares so few
he'd count them on a thumb-less hand.
He listened to the belching frogs,
currents foaming fruited wish.
All the roads just bobbins
spinning feeble threads.
People were just dirty diapers
messing up the ambience --
the only corner of this quilt
batting of his mind despised.
Evening seemed a cool sin
to drag through forests of a lung.
Nothing but the moon for glare.
Sense of power -- brief, cirrose.


Janet I. Buck

Posted over on Poetry Magazine