I Met A Something Yesterday
Something deep in the evergreen woods
reached out to me yesterday.
I was patrolling the line between
the unused barn and the five-foot thicket
when a Something with a voice that thwicked
like a nine of diamonds wedged in a Schwinn
called my name.
My person turned before I knew
and my person also seemed to know
not to turn much further after that.
I thought of a million things I could've heard
but before my person could make words of it
Something made a game of it
and thwicked again.
The more I leaned in the louder it called
and the closer I looked the faster it spun.
26 3/8" on overgrown gravel
A tight grip on rotten rubber handlebars
The acrid stench of oil washed by verbena
A lightning storm on my chin
and an earthquake up from chucks
to an unstable gut.
But there's no rattling chains here,
just whistling trees and the lingering tickle
of a bloody nose that I couldn't let mom see.
Edit: I'm unsure if I used the markdown editing tricks properly, so please feel free to let me know. Thank you!
Posted Jul 18, 2022, 7:07 AM UTC · edited