5″ x 7″ Woodblock print on Somerset paper
with Graphic Chemical Bone Black Ink

Sit on a kumquat, Michael Botts?

Rivers of chryselephantine,

kumquats and natural springs

are meant for better things.

Joust with dragonflies at night

by glow worm light.

Play milkweed flutes.

Fly dragon kites.

A storm blows out of the mouth of the sun

like butterflies out of a dragon’s throat,

and butterflies drop on the leaves of the trees

till the trees are covered in purple and gold.

Caterpillars eat the moon.

The road grows scales and wings

and flies back into the sun.

Under a mushroom Penelope waits

for the rain to stop and for you to come

and butterflies rest themselves in her hair.

And still you sit there, Michael Botts?

–Ship of Fools and In Raspberry Gulch–

5″ x 7″ Woodblock print on Somerset paper
with Graphic Chemical bone black ink, then
hand colored with acrylic paint.

Her soiled satin pumps are out of place,

transparent images in window glass.

She moves along the rain-washed concrete walk

and gently twirls her single gillyflower.

She’s Rosalind. Carnations are for other

days and times. The paper banners screaming,

“SALE! MARKDOWNS UP TO 35%!”;

the clothes; the jewelry carefully arranged

on hairless, alabaster mannequins;

the New York style deli: neon, pink

and purple spelling intermittently

PASTRAMI; Canon’s auto-everything;

Danielle Steele; all are disregarded as

she smells her flower absent-mindedly

and softly uses it to stroke her neck.

— Coffeehouse Poets Quarterly