Black assam
was perfume for
the throat, eating
flowers down to
their crocus;
Green:
unfurled flags
or seaweed
for a mariner sipping
tobacco washed up
on anchored saucers.
Serpentine, headless,
stingrays dove
at the pearls
of sugar
buried
in the heeltap,
no daylight
at the rim,
just a raft of lemon,
its fleshy planks
striated, curdling pink,
sloshing golden water.
Lilliputians
of a master guild
were doused. On
cinnamon-stick
scaffolding
their eyelash brushes
rendered the globe
(around it:
fat sultans, the Queen
reclining,
an Assyrian princess
with a parasol and
tambourine,
an Egyptian king
costumed in feathers -
of orange pekoe -
armed with arrow and bow,
an alligator at his feet).
Their art was soundless.
They wore
flippers as they worked,
carried paddles –
ready to voyage to
the other side
of the porcelain canvas,
through the breakfasty sea,
where they traced
the zodiac
through that
stained lagoon,
dripping star scents
and crumbs of the sun
into the paint.
Oxygen
for the boil
was cold water, a
serous alchemy.
Gulped down to
leafy starfish,
it was too late
not to empty
what they were deep
into making good fortunes of.
____________________________
A varied collection of poems chosen by Garrison Keillor for his radio show, Prairie Home Companion. Great for the bedside.
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