11-19-2014, 10:10 AM
* Posted here since I haven't had time to offer feedback for anyone's poems lately, as I've been swamped with reading.
January is a court-appointed shadow
of the previous year
repeating everything I wish
I would’ve said aloud.
Quietly, I pay less attention.
February is a stump of legal documents
stained in sepia rings of espresso:
a ledger of your quirks down to the snorts,
reasonable doubts and unreasonable verdicts.
We’re infatuated with something incarcerated.
March is a spectacular punishment,
a convict cooked on a spit
to be cannibalized by wardens’ wives,
swallowed without tasting.
Scrutiny is unlike romance.
It may or may not be
April -- our case may or may not be settled,
though still I love you like I did
the first instance I couldn’t admit it.
Juryless, I testify.
January is a court-appointed shadow
of the previous year
repeating everything I wish
I would’ve said aloud.
Quietly, I pay less attention.
February is a stump of legal documents
stained in sepia rings of espresso:
a ledger of your quirks down to the snorts,
reasonable doubts and unreasonable verdicts.
We’re infatuated with something incarcerated.
March is a spectacular punishment,
a convict cooked on a spit
to be cannibalized by wardens’ wives,
swallowed without tasting.
Scrutiny is unlike romance.
It may or may not be
April -- our case may or may not be settled,
though still I love you like I did
the first instance I couldn’t admit it.
Juryless, I testify.