Absurdity

Vintage gardener's
truck, a hedgehog—
prickling with shovel, rake,
hedge trimmers—impales
my new car's fender on its
make-shift bumper, a strut
welded to its back end.
This protruding appendage,
like a sardine can pin, skewers
it—up front near the bumper—
makes of it an aluminum tin.
Mustang on a pick.
Twist upon twist. Slow
motion. Its metal gets wound
around itself,
right front fender first,
then door,
then back fender,
silver shavings on asphalt,
before it finally stops.
I–trying to catch it–left
on the asphalt with skinned
knee, torn tights. I crawl around
in the street searching
for one lost rhinestone earring.

Published 3/04 in the journal Lunarosity

Arizona's Christmas Card

Abdomen and thorax green
bubbles or two emerald cabochons,
his legs like rose bush twigs,
grey, beige, thorned. A green lynx
spider rappels between spikes
of Cholla blooming red.

Ode to Santa Ana

Oh, saintly formchanger, ardent
breather, bellow your heat

through San Gorgonio
pass, swiftly to the coast. Exhale,

tease, ignite. Scatter embers,
like neon popcorn, across lanes,

firebreaks, the Golden State
to where brittle salt brush waits.

You, shapechanger, VanGogh
taunting hell's own crimson

pigment up, up, more passion
producing than stars or moon, thrust

plumes of smoke to dull
the sky, rain cinders

down to pock paint, litter
pools, smother leaves.

still green, with nuclear grey.
You whose ancient testament

speaks apocalypse, perverse rage.
What you cannot persuade

you tame with fear, what you cannot
sway you use your deadly

whiles against, your amorous
art to kill. It is your nature

to brandish your beauty.
It is ours to be seduced.

© 2008 Carolyn Howard-Johnson