Daily Neuroses
1. Rain Golfers
My eyes dart for the rain golfers
Possum braves crossing in barrows
Fresh hunters from an anxious tribe
Road to kill while I check my mirrors
They're whipping poor Will
Their war clubs held high
Swinging thunderbolts
Cracking my windshield
2. Dead Flowers Enough
Dead flowers enough in the back of my car
Once-yellow silk petals mud caked
Black and green stems, flecktarn
Mold streaks down the sides of your headstones
I stabbed new stems in a rocky cashew jar
An odorless gift for breathless noses
Half-buried in a mound between you two buzzards
Dead flowers enough in the back of my car
Aren't going anywhere for years.
3. Lost Bills
Bedlam and squalor, singular inertia
Hair tangles piling in the corners
Sparrows beating against the ceiling
The dust graying of every
Good thing that fell to the floor
Dust gray, breeding, fermenting
With a blue or black pen
Or a carrier pigeon
Draw a grid and cross the squares
When you're done hunting them
The lost bills are somewhere
Steeping in the still
__
Steffen Mitchell is a writer.
1. Rain Golfers
My eyes dart for the rain golfers
Possum braves crossing in barrows
Fresh hunters from an anxious tribe
Road to kill while I check my mirrors
They're whipping poor Will
Their war clubs held high
Swinging thunderbolts
Cracking my windshield
2. Dead Flowers Enough
Dead flowers enough in the back of my car
Once-yellow silk petals mud caked
Black and green stems, flecktarn
Mold streaks down the sides of your headstones
I stabbed new stems in a rocky cashew jar
An odorless gift for breathless noses
Half-buried in a mound between you two buzzards
Dead flowers enough in the back of my car
Aren't going anywhere for years.
3. Lost Bills
Bedlam and squalor, singular inertia
Hair tangles piling in the corners
Sparrows beating against the ceiling
The dust graying of every
Good thing that fell to the floor
Dust gray, breeding, fermenting
With a blue or black pen
Or a carrier pigeon
Draw a grid and cross the squares
When you're done hunting them
The lost bills are somewhere
Steeping in the still
__
Steffen Mitchell is a writer.