Melissa Upfold

 

Like a Family

 

Boiled lips speak in poetical gestation,

this room is a fountain of infancy.

 

dirty banisters- wooden strips

stippled with black and shadows

 

canopy over head,

while the kitsch of 1970’s fans turn in graceful

refrain.

a combination of

sloppy alcohol intake and

populated egos spread beneath

 

in chaotic circles where limbs

drape over limbs

 

 

Wrecking Age.

 

I.

The street runs parallel to my porch-

an unbalanced beam in white lattice.

Under the front stairs the shadows

are tapestries by mid-afternoon on the sand

and wood chips.

 

II.

I am learning how to combat you in daylight

 

so when evening

fractures my skin in night

I will not come unhinged.

 

III.

I will not

splinter into fragments

 

from which the mid-afternoon can so easily

 

weave tapestries of me.

 

 

Morse Code

 

the public is crowding

yesterday

like

it was  a sign but

 

‘its

all phonetics’

 

I say,

 

the phrase

catches and remains

between my

tongue and jawbone till it

loses almost all meaning.

 

but not all.

 

leaves  me with only

mouthfuls

of willow trees and

 

 dry coughs of

jet streams. 

 

 

t p u

Melissa Upfold