Today's poem is by Dana Curtis

The Nature of Clarity
       

The Safeway is full of dying
women, colorful scarves wrapped around
stretched tight skin. I buy some fresh
shrimp and tomatoes, wait
at the register next to a box of
Slug and Snail Death. Everything
is dying or waiting to die. I would
coat the trashcan with pepper spray —
just a bad taste in the squirrels' mouths. Across
the street is an apartment building where
I expect to see something out of
Rear Window but these neighbors
are private about their murders.
During the last blackout, nothing
happened except a horse
escaping to run naked down
the street trailing sparks
like a grinding wheel, unlike the sky,
this temple, an ocean appears
out of everywhere.

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Copyright © 2023 Dana Curtis All rights reserved
from Directed by Lilly Obscure
BlazeVOX [books]
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission