Shoo Fly
       

Scratch a ponderosa pine &you get
butterscotch. What she meant was nick it.
She used her hatchet.
Amber ensued. A pudding.
She snapped the cape to her Subaru & flew it.
Say you were bad at rations & the scent faded.
Say it was hopscotch she'd meant all along.
That season was diamond-hard & you the occlusion in it.
The next was a Flemish painting &you the pit in the stone fruit.
Pain is a quarantine all its own.
It comes with padded earphones & a joystick.
Hear the tone close hear the tone farther.
Stars explode in the head &you squeeze squeeze squeeze.
Say you were bad at weather & the chalk faded.
Say it was another tune you'd wanted all along.
Suddenly you're eating soft-serve on a ferry & singing
campfire songs under Orion.
Here are the willows skip to my lou.
Here are the roses skip to my lou.
She skipped it my darling my darling now you.

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Copyright © 2012 Kathy Fagan All rights reserved
from Cimarron Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission