justwrite 7 august

where the red fern grows its own tomatoes there's a wind blowing harder than that chair where you had to sit when you'd said it all and there was no place to take it back to you with your saucy mouth you with your pouches of reserved sass kept back for just the right moment when the right back was turned and the left cheek had earned enough color for one way a ticket to lick all comers to stick to the numbers and bet the reserves the preserved ringers all around the horseshoe curve the best old pie charting off to mexico at that rate of return no longer just a stronger sip of a clipped ponytail wagging a stump to brush off the gawkers wondering how and why the sighs added up that way stayed awake to say hello to the afternoon despite never having made its previous acquaintance the main dance a trance of utmost solemnity drinking the scene with tangerine subsets the pretext was a prologue had to be said ought to be read in triplicate like a transparency or a forgive me like a transcript demanding itself be heard be absurd with wording unseen and sights unclean even in the lean months once there was a moth and the trough it had to cross was so wide it decided to hide so it lied to its boss which it didn't have since it was a moth and it pretended to start the journey but slipped away into the moon instead spreading its wings and singing a secret song in the cool white air