when the ice begins to break, you hear the poems repair the baskets...

 ‘Landing of Hendrick Hudson’ by Robert Walter Weir (1842)

they peddle commodity and glass: old river hunger at the wean of seasons

we are sold on their

fancy countenance lights

rung painted circular wise

molten top cooled caught

crossed wired support placed

caged bones in case

we needed to buy more doors

windows are free to look through

though we might want

to hewn our views slowly

oxidizing iron in our blood

cut cloth-ing membership dues

magnets we swear by

dreams we subscribe to often enough

to have the exits in them memorized

patent patterned doorknob latch pulls

spare mercies reading lighted comfort

tucking in against the night out there

a thirsty hungry flesh

quarry to sanded stone

a rain smoothed visage

wind and burn

learn our names  

we come to be known though

by way of scent and road

bent jointed loan sharked articulations

we’d rather crawl than speak sometimes

lost in someone’s eyes

is where we were told

we’d know damnation already

a sugar simple magic rum

molasses and slave to more

a moored slick batik swirl hypnosis

little pocket slavery smuggler tides

here in America

when the penny candy store

put in “The Lottery”

by Shirley Jackson

slot machines

we knew

the madame tussauds

among us would value wax

and wane disappearance cycles

above us all, pour themselves out

while we the herd frenzy

stretch our skin into components

that want to taste immortality

we are who gather on the town green

would bargain being broken

we are who want passage past each hell

we want entrance into every secret heaven

we want safety and security

a surety in another year again

the vendor said

stop talking

I said it feels like pins

far away when I win

token and stay

I am anticipating

unseen pokes

that may or 

may not be

cathartic for me

the vendor said

once more remember

painful appliqués

of wisdom no less

take time to appreciate

when the beauty

is in a scar

the vendor folded the pushcart

packed away the bells

the monkey and peanut machine

there would no more tickets

to scratch off or one armed banditry

this town the vendor said

has advanced its faith

in ‘thank god it’s someone else’ superstitions

it has once again

adhered sacrifice to disguise

a ritual community's

goodness by lie

look again

when Winter breaks

I'll be back

to see and sell

another chance 

for you to tell

your soul to stomach

all it is you want to take

EJR ©