Rummy Park, 47
(A New Leaf)

by Rebecca Lu Kiernan

Vein-lavender waterbirds
Festoon the leafless willow
Impolitely staring
With their lidless, silver eyes,
Mocking
With their laughless smiles,
Drowning
In the winter light,
Unscattered by the storm,
Fighting to stand
Directly on the damage mark.

Lightning never strikes twice
The same begonia shrouded lake,
The monkey palm
Ablazed in red moonlight.

I empty the shredder
Sending my secrets
To the sea foam green.
But, what good is it to erase
Codes committed to memory?
Words no good
In anyone else’s hands?

What’s the point
In casting off the lie?
What one chooses is more revealing
Than what chooses the one.

If I saw you drowning
As those other lives sank
To the bottomless black,
I’d have to let you go,
The way you hold onto
The hypodermic in my lipstick case,
The camera in my shoe.