Poetry

Leaves Or Breath

Besides thatched roofs and bandstands donated in 1905
The bowling green slept like a naked board game.
Its customs sucked away through morning and frost.
From an October bench, determined wood ring veins
Creased against key carved names
Before retiring to the blistered ulcers of surrendered leaves.

Between them repressed roll ups splintered like teeth
And a Simian nonchalance changed this seat
From a place where men huddled in life boats
To a glassy, sniggering mouth.

Eternal as a tongued cut pulsed
Josh lovez Beth. As if something was seen
In the patrolled eyes of comrades lost in quiet game.
A spark that burned from your gums until you took the marker
With ferocious hands and wrote something, anything
That felt like it deserved to last longer than leaves
Or breath.

Lewis Haubus