el amor y la muerte

The sky was white dusted blue.  The sky was blue chalked white.  The sky was flat and cloudless.  There were fields cropped into sweet, prickly rolls.  "Reel away, reel away, straw into gold!"  Under a sky, heavy on the eyes.  Fourth of July.  Flies on your burger & hornets under the slide.  Crab apples glowing at the edge of the yard.  A flickering cul-de-sac, a salty haze.  Paper lanterns floating into the night.  And enough hugs for everyone.  Driving home through stuttering flares.  With a full moon stuck in the corner of my window.  Falling asleep reading Invisible Ink.
Today I made a bird bath, and a shrine of sorts.  I hand-scrubbed a lacquer of sickness from my kitchen floor.  I recycled in the sun, burning my knuckles on the rubber flap of the 'mixed paper' dumpster.  I found a yellow & black Wakarusa matchbook that still smelled of fireworks.  Retribution Gospel Choir dripped a coppery sap into the cracks of the day, despite the Arctic slabs on the album cover.
The house smells like clove, incense & rose, thanks to an old vial of oil named after a Goya etching.