Your Blackberry Roman Á Clef (after Romance Novel)

 

chapter one lays out the groundwork

by turns, friable, loamy, overlain

with mouse footprints

 

chapter seven delves into character development

the antagonist is made human

through a single selfless action

 

chapter eleven our heroine, protagonist

flutters about the thorny patch partly

trampled down by thoughtless bears

 

chapter twenty-two a throwaway moment

from chapter three shudders into sharp relief

the narrative suffers repeated setbacks

 

chapter thirty-eight’s plot lines tangle

fast and precarious, leaving the reader

uncertain of who to cheer for

 

the penultimate chapter describes a resolution

of sorts, in emotionless detail, the woods

around her house offer solace and safety

 

chapter one thousand and one she crushes

blackberries in her hands, gobbles them down

when no one is looking

[RK, 11/26/20]

 

 

Fear

 

a stingray, a silver dollar sized

silver fish, kingfishers rattle above

playful cormorants dart beneath hulls

 

overarching mangrove trunks, tangled

roots, shallow intercoastal communiques

mangled by a cell phone photo map

 

unfeathered paddles whack branches

every plus and minus balanced

even though balance is improbable

[RK, 11/26/20]

 

What You Heard Me Say When I Said Yes

 

I’m not sure

do I have to?

it doesn’t need to be like that

is that what you want?

I disagree

what are the options?

I don’t want to

is there an alternative?

I don’t like it

[RK, 11/26/20]

 

 

Slipping Away (after Combing the Beach)

 

eddies left by paddles

a bare choppy sea lit

inescapable light, lingering

 

long after the passage of boats

what remains unsaid, measured

with cracked gray oysters

 

clinging, surrounded by gnats

here on the rising tide, rising, 

floating, and falling,

 

rising, floating, and falling, 

rising, floating, and falling, 

falling, falling.

[RK, 11/26/20]

Root, Trunk, Limb, Twig, Flower, Fruit

 

one of those winding conversations

without beginning or end, for example

our mutual distain for a consumer life

lmade easy by a dependence on oil

 

viewpoints which join us at the hip

while the unspoken stories remain

tangled, sixty year old roots hidden

in split rocks and sludgy clay

[RK, 11/26/20]