O, Happy happy happy! (How happy am I to-day?)

---

I’m so happy!
The sun shines and the flowers bloom!
The Lord be praised for there’s nothing happier than
to-day’s happy day.

Press a gun to my temple and let petals
burst from the warm barrel and
penetrate me
with smiles and roasted marshmallows!

O, how I giggle at the men of the past:
Neanderthals, Victorians, Bohemians, and, too,
the muslims, buddhists, atheists, and
jews and blacks on this happiest of happy
Christian days!

My insides float in warm strawberry jam.
O, happy day! Is there no end to the good
that glides over the world like peach syrup?

Thailand is blooming!
Louisiana is singing!
Koreans are holding hands!
Ethiopia is laughing!

Who could tear through my impenetrable, faith-full
ballistic vest of happiness?
Who could wring the happy perspiration
from the bright underpants of life to-day?

Together, let’s walk unafraid
through the flowering minefields of happy.

Night, Fall

Fine grooves split down the shells of refulgent embers, carving outlines of Halloween teeth into blackened wood, and spheres of tangerine held in your eyes like dry planets while water stole up the sand to make negatives of our toes. Lying back, the smell of marshmallows and ash filled our noses and stars clumped and circled overhead like a halo stretched over Earth. I said something about not being able to see the leaves changing color and we laughed at our seriousness. With an exhale, we closed our eyes as freckles of red danced over us like fireflies.

---

Black Wheels Under Red Paint

Sirens pounded in my head as I leapt up from the shattered glass table I didn’t see. Pops was carrying the heavier bags and ran ahead down the dark and empty street. “They ain’t gon’ come quick enough. Haha, we good. We good,” he whispered to himself while I limped behind. After an hour, we made it under the Jenson bridge and unpacked the goods in our bags to wheelbarrows. My leg was cut up and bleeding. It stung like someone was taking a cheese grater to my calves, but I kept packing and lay black tarp over the loot. “You ever think this’s wrong?” I asked as pops lifted the rubber handles. The rusted metal dug back into the mud and pops squeezed my jaw. His eyes were flat, like manhole covers, and he started talking like he was reading from a book. “Morality is optional,” he said. “And we opt out a long time ago.” He let me go and we got going down the moonlit trail. As the handles of my cart bounced in my hand over the gravel, I thought about what he said and couldn’t shake the feeling that what he really meant was that we’ve never had many choices and damnit this was the best one.

Summer’s End: August 22nd, 1978

We sat between goalposts, picking grass until egg yolk broke across the sky and the whites clumped lazily together, sliding above us. Slowly, wooden castles, recycled tires, and rows of buttercups stepped out of hiding to see God’s flaxen hair swing gently over the soccer field. Our hands fit together like zippers with bits of green pressed in the heart of our palms like petals drying into memory between pages.

In Rust We…

The slate sky strung itself with thick cords of ink-black, the color that scums ocean floors and stretches through gutters. Bells of light that once streamed and pooled like uncoiled trumpets now whispered through the smoke; the greasy haze had persisted long enough that no one in this corner of the world could recall the gleam of day without squinting. On my way home, I passed by Thorn Crown church, the only halfway house left for the confused and spiritual, the last, white scab on the island. Wind and sea salt stripped paint from the door and ran through vines like harrow’s teeth, warping the horseshoe trellis that bent around the frame. The long shadow that hung over the walkway led up to a “wings of desire” replica standing in silhouette. The angel’s metal wings spread to her sides and her hands rose into the dark heavens that seemed to sink over her skull like oil. Through the hallow rattling of the breeze, the black statue called, “My wings…” It wheezed with dragging repetition to remind passersby to be fearful. “My wings,” it echoed all through the night, breathing on the faces of men and women, lapping over the town like waves.

High on a Cliff

Minerva admired the ocean from her house overlooking the bay, the old lighthouse standing next to her right thumb as she held her fingers in the shape of a frame.  Often the wind at the edge of the cliff blew too hard to allow her to step onto the porch with her camera, and today it moaned while floorboards rattled, rubbed together like bones, sank closer to the earth like her skin.  Rain blotted the sunken glass like gum syrup and the waves that uncurled under the precipice seemed to swell and relax like a tongue licking at the clay supporting her home.  Through her fisheye pane, the sea grew as if a yawning mouth with white, sea froth running from blue lips, panting, “Down, down” on the bluff walls.  Staring into Death, she felt a tremor jostle her to the floor as if the very foundations were shaking.