https://youtu.be/AksbJTrKD8E

Performed by Val Cole
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POEM:

On Solstice He Replaces Her Flowers with Cabbages

rain on gray pebbles
twinkle pinks and green spasms
autumn valentine

hands in the old dirt
on the roots – gentle pressure
deny my regrets

daylight saving dark
wake to haze-blurred street signal
brake to skid sideways

ice-rain gel-coat stoop
slippery alley-barrels
impatient raccoon

cold, cursed cockroaches
darkly crawl through heated cracks
redolence of crumbs

courtyard assembly
perched on peeling planes at dawn
comes winter judgment

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all our hikes upstate
never thought you’d be the first
the night lights would take

oak leaf paper floors
our boots kicked up sweet decay
freeing the old ghosts

fire-lit embraces
new logs to turn over
ashes piling up

things we didn’t say
splitting clementine wedges
grains of a diamond