Everything here is green
lemon-clean floors and
neatly folded shutters
the couch is crisp and
doesn't sag or turn at the corners
when autumn comes
you spend your evenings
on the simple wooden porch swing
made for comfort, not show
sipping top shelf rum
mixed with coca cola
and clear, round ice,
and your dog hardly sheds
and there are strays
(oddly kempt)
that you feed blue buffalo
out of scrubbed metal bowls
it's full night now. stars glow irregular and sharp. the moon is at a quarter, a half-open eye glaring at you. through the windows. across the hardwood floors. deep into the clean white carpet. the world looks grey, even with your porch light, fixed with a sun-yellow bulb.a bulbs you remember buying just for that sconce. the one ragged stray is at your door now, downstairs. scratching and braying. its back arches too high. its skin is sickly gray, almost silver in the starlight. it holds its forepaw twisted, crooked, an odd angle. it must have mange for how its locks scab and clump and fall all over the whitewashed wood.
Thermostat at 72 exactly,
dressed in soft clean and
stainless bathrobe
making an Americano
ignore the scratching
insistent at your back door
leftover from last night's chaos
nails determined to flake your
perfect white paint
you don't worry
about the way the far-off boughs
slouch and loom over
a well-trimmed rich green lawn
lined with pansies
replanted every season
don't think about winter. snow clawing its way to your crisp, hot hearth. ready to engulf the smolder. the aching tug at your chest that is not swallowed by cigar smoke. sunset is far off. you lay, prostrate, polite--a queen size bed, sensible, cozy. eyes flick open. stare at the window. the cat's downstairs again. a creak at the door. a rustle, swoosh of fabric. something gray, tall, sagging, leaning sideways, fingers long like tendril branches. growing. nearly to the headboard now.
It's a good life you have here
your socks are clean
your meals are made
your clothes are new and
whole
you say, I Don't Work
I Love My Job
It's Like A Hobby To Me
a vocation,
a career
yet the Tall Man comes
whenever the sun's light recedes
and breathes over your bed--
he reeks of dried marigold heads
of crushed grass
of snake musk
of horse dung
of fertile earth
and everything wild,
unkempt, unclean
About the Creator
Felecia Burgett
Novice writer, amateur novelist, poet, article writer, dabble, and animal lover.
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