Evergreen

It's hot inside. Aphasia sweat.
Like an undropped pine cone,

The You-verb

it hangs here, unconjugable.
All is in accord.
Driving

home I pass under a green light
and feel in compliance
with all

law. I pull over, as compelled
by apostrophe of woods
and moon.

Down shines the pricked light through pine trees
that hide here. In careful dance
around

Douglas firs, (forest viscera)
succor of banshee in
mild yield,

I carve my purpose in a tree
thus, making it my name.

U-turn,

like a hair shirt the road calls me.
Drop everything: come on
out, pine

needle in my shoe. Acquiesced,
I try to shout out loud
in final

obsequy, but I'm out of loud.
I can barely intone
each pulse

of a broken metronome,
clicking its nomenclature.

Copyright © 2007 Mike Luke All rights reserved
from Lambeth Magazine
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission