“Dreams for Sale”

Ivory towers are difficult to maintain
Too much melancholy seeps into the cracks
Jostling the dust for position of primacy
Longing for an out; escape is a feather duster ride

She hovers among the secreted garden of words
Slender stalks of them over here, ground-hugging clumps over there
Flinging some violently against the canvas of her mind
One or two dripping on to the floor, rolling into cracks
– probably best unwritten
–
Her hands flutter like butterfly wings, brushing
Against thoughts as they come to her,
Busily beating the air in order to maintain
Her loft and speed, trajectory unknown

Among memories she nectars like a bee,
Hoarding the pollen of them until,
Unable to walk with the full pockets
Of them clinging to her knees, she must fly instead

Some words light on the stretched canvas as
If daintily brushed by pollinating spores, while
Others droop heavily, likely needing
Deadheading to make way for a new bloom of words

Glancing sideways at the canvas she spies motes of melancholy
Stuck; tendrils winding among the petals of thoughts,
Nestled in the seedheads of words past their prime
Needing a fresh breeze to lift and carry them away

Instead, a downpour of tears pummels the canvas
Marring the words, mingling them all together
Until they become an abstract representation
Of all that she is, was, will be; warm palette of womanity

She delicately props the still-wet canvas in the window ledge
Facing the alley, visible to all passers-by
Forming in flowing script by hand the small sign that
Reads, “Dreams for Sale – Limited Edition”

~SE

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