it smells sweet and bitter
like cinnamon but flat, acrid
as if the promise of sweetness
was suddenly broken
and I’m left gagging, shocked
that the flavor’s all wrong
lost again, groping
at edges, indistinct
blurred together in a whirl of motion
all confusion and reflection and nonsense
it looks like the sky
shining up from wet pavement
obscuring where the ground
begins and ends
it’s all middle
I long for a marker
but the path is lost in monochromes
it sounds like the sharp drum
of a woodpecker
against the Ash tree
that died five years ago
the one that’s green and alive
in all the old photos
but now stands leafless in August
as Trumpet vine climbs
the skeletal canopy
the epitome of opportunistic need