march

march was difficult, apprehensive

We sat beside the brown water of the impotent river
We sat beside it on the muddy bank
The yellow dirt and red mud caked on our fingertips and baked.
However
It was cooler there, beside the sluggish, shallow vein
Where the geese preened slick grime from grey wings
It was cool and wet and smelled like life
Though I saw nothing but the dead yellow grasses curled
And the metacarpally spined shoots of cottonwoods.

We sat together on the muddy bank
And for once I didn’t care that my hair was not just long enough
To grace my shoulders
With you to ruffle my hair gently, oh so gently
What should I care for ribbons or locks tugged taunt,
Meticulously ironed and constrained?

You fiddled music for me in the fallen leaves bleached cream
I sang along (off key but you never minded)
What do you think?

I asked the clouded river with its distorted eyes peering back like narcissus blooms
In this the narcissus season.
It never spoke a word but then the stare
Was distorted. In which way I knew not.
Now, for the sake of you who loves me
I will dab on the red mud and yellow dust and cover
The bared skin you traced and sculpt another face
A burial mask to classify and confound.
O distortion, has my visage improved much with the application of mud?

Not long now, not long now, not long now
Only until this devalued exercise
A parade out dated and threadbare in tread and endless repetition of a name a name an anonymous name
Only until this day is over.  Then once more
We can go on our way.

Patience, you said, as you wiped away the mud applied thicker with every apprehension issued by both the crisp white nodding flower
And my own distrust of you who called me beautiful.
Is it not enough for us to sit here among friends
And dangle our feet over the cinderblock wall?

Is that all you demand,
To dangle our feet over cinderblock walls
And watch the trickle of water down concrete troughs?

When I first clutched at your hand extended
You told me your sunrise love was free and I believed you and it is true
But What and When and Why and Who I now feel
Has cost me more than all this dust so lovingly combined.
It has cost me narcissus blossoms paper pale and blank
And the mud in which I welter all my insecurities.