Here is a carrot
we made it from sticks

eat it

eat the stick carrot
or by gosh
we’ll hit you with
this stick

which is not made of carrots

now
here’s a survey about how you feel
which we also made from sticks
although
it doesn’t matter if it’s glass or gold
we won’t look at it anyway

so
eat the stick carrot
and try not to look over there
where they’ll give you actual carrots
and sticks are frowned upon

oh
you’ve gone

On the cusp,
heat on heat on heat
breaking to snot ridden storms
and hoarse, blasted throats

the following cold front
isn’t ideal
but in its heavy blue resolve
lowered pressure leads
to a duvet covered peace

No sooner through the door
than spider-legged anxiety
scurries back haphazard
like a frenemy whose cactus skin hug
begins in September and ends in July

No age
no age at all
never a justification
a reason to placate us
just an implacable, non-negotiable theft
of love, histories and too much still to be

the solace, a skinflint’s compensation,
is that for a short while you had them
and they had you
and that was life

but that’s as much as you get
to try to make it through

September heat to melt the
sealing wax, closing off summer
as grasses, golden as they die
still whisper with insect thought

the trees reply in kind
though the greying of their temples
can’t be hidden
reminding of the irresistible slide
to winter’s wide silences

Caulk these broken bows, please
whether salt or fresh water,
it has weight, presence
and if allowed to pour in
it will sink me

Trying not to think too much
won’t work
as the only perpetual motion found
in this empirical life
is in our anxious minds
so as life jackets go
it’s a no no

To ask for a shipwright is unfair
but to have you there,
tar brush in hand
is enough

Correlation does not imply causation.

Solid, strong, fact.

But when the month long grey veil
that smothered our holiday is hauled back
just as we return,
sun and fat heat to grill us in our ties and blazers,
I’m inclined, for once, to thumb my nose at science:

nature abhors term time