Discriminating palates
garnish salads with shallots
But when eating croquettes
avoid mallets
emagi Alice Guerin Crist. 'CROQUET'
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O | |
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O
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O =
You’ve always
let me win at croquet
and I could never
figure out why
until the day
I saw you smile
into the sun
and move your lips
in silence
and wink to a passing cloud
and purposely hit
the ball astray.
Border
guard hoops
and hedgehog balls;
striking flamingos; painted-rose
walls
When Nature frees the lotus
(This year's debut emergence)
From their sleeping seeds,
When they begin to cress the surface,
I shall stand with broadened smile,
My heart's joy augment threefold;
And when the lillies burst
In galvanic evening's gold,
If the expansion of elation
Don't mean I'm likely doomed
To laugh so hard confined
In the vaulted night perfumed
And if I don't spit out my life
When the lillies shoot their seeds
And no tremors shall have seized my heart
Nor Death, my ticket, heeds:
When Cold caresses the membranes,
Bringing the lillies to rot and break,
Bowing down before the wind,
Their thirst, face down, to slake,
They later will be frozen
On the very coldest day,
Bent into the wickets
Of Spatterdock Croquet.
and now we bask in the bloodlust
waiting for another reason
to whimper,
“why do they hate us?”
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