thinking of beauty, its
recollection mining the tunnels of memory

you will likely spend your dotage
reliving a misspent youth

teaching your bones to ache
now you over-salt your stews

each missing tooth tells
its own tale of neglect

that long search for meaning
had drifted like a whiff of something

through the reeds, the red-winged blackbird
chirping her hints, the deer fly the

cattail down snagged on a fallen honey locust
the dry chuckle of leaf litter underfoot

you spent the bulk of it in cities
trapped in that concrete condom

where face muscles fight
against their own worried smiles

flashing below those void eyes
like the parched easement

of a dry spell oystershell
bitter in its own happy way

round pegs in square graves
one foot already in when

her cervix dilated and you
didn’t even have a name

but your first utterance
was plaintive, and loud

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Written with the above pictured ephemera as a prompt.