“Verde”

Karen Pava Randall

I knew you when we lived in the undulating prairie amongst placid

ungulates

And you thought that I was vain and loved me nonetheless

We married under the sign of the green triumvirate

Clover manifested its destiny

And nothing we peel off in greenbacks

Will ever be sufficient to pay the ferry man

The last time we made love you were about to die

and what a tawdry film they played at midnight

Oh the hooligans and their howling. How ho. What do you know? And at

noon

it was raining and the record player scratched out a sprawling palace

for you to reside in. May you find peace among the ruminations of the

ancients

May you swallow all the bitterness of this moment.

Be the peacock we need. Transform and purge.

* * *

Laughter is the music of the spheres — meh meh, I bore myself by trying

to bore

down into the earth. Snakes signifying and worms turning, but the

preacher is

an hour glass wandering in the hills. In the dunes on the cape

Laughter in the early hours

Sandy signifiers

Snaky shellacked book shuckers escape

Verde que te quero verde. The green how I love you green

The river making love the whole length of the singularity

Twin inserts seed cacophony

You have gone and cauterized the wounded word

Oh croque-monsieur, don’t croak monsieur, let’s have a croissant instead

Prickleback or stickleback

Nascent anchovies. A nation of stinky fish

See citation index and

Insert fish whiffs here