Candice Ward

 

Riddle Me This


They speak to me of Texas,
eagles, derbies--the helluvit is
my winter of white step-ins--so
they take my crowns for Kansas
headbutts while biting balloons.
They bait me to bed, ever

boarded ahead of the class
dunce. Feeling outflanked, this
lady fingers the merchandise,
singing the sand's airs way past
time to clock passion's fruit:
we'll have music music music!

That big girl's blouse does
housing, even the odd boy-
friend; care for care, who can
pulse to keep the beat of these
mosaic cowlicks? She rushes
from rodeo to video, dizzy

with gills & gulls at an imp-
ressionable age, my package
to carry. Every month of Sundays
beside herself, knowing the moon
is not what it's cracked up
to be, lying like a dime in

my palm, where time awaits
a gun--start me up! put me
down! We get to two & carry
the zero, the lonely number
bar one: stir it up then &
pay off the cabby, then

riddle me this:

if you die
before I stop--



From the Constabulary Formulary


When we left off trotting
for skiing, lieder like stars
in arrears, I took your name
for bleach & whitewashed
the future behind me: the blindest

seer's shadow, the sweet gherkins
that don't mind if I do. (Do I hear
a tuba, sub rosa?) Jaysus, marry &
plunk it, why don't you! In re
holiday expectorants idly dubbing

the rest of us gulden & jesuitic,
I dreamed of mandarins as rinds
of you & me, a baker's tune, a
dozy endive we'd read the rushes by.
A t'sk at eight's a gasket--abide it

to market a snowbird, for silver
dales do make good hill figures
from some perspective, & I'm
a maudlin dyspneac. My love
is pinker than a Cadillac:

you bet your luck it is.



 


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