hydrangeas

They kick the soccer ball inches past my noggin. It's just a matter of time now: some hairy hipster will kick the ball and it will kerrang off some other smaller hipster's knee and then it will smash into my face, break my glasses, et al. No I should not have put my flower-plated couch out on the turf. You said we needed to take things out for a bit, I said no, you said we could plug in the TV, I said fine, will there be internet? no, no of course not, it wouldn't be roughing it if it were a coffee shop and the public soccer field ain't no coffee shop is it? No need to be rude, I said, I just want google, then--google is my dog, was my dog even before that other google, the one who wrote those novels. The ball whizzes by, and you're gone to get some wine: wine, out here, is a luxury. Ooh children, look at me. I've got hydrangeas for windows.

(This prose poem inspired by the art of Erin Shafkind.)

fragment of a reflection

Found with waves that tore themselves from the shore I ran from that place and found the ends buried under a table that no one ever uses anymore - loose strands - the faintest trace of ancient air and a rope covered in stars severed from my hands long ago and barely able to wonder that far with eyes on knees on that gravel driveway - mouth asunder - but now to live somehow