Download the App and We’ll Plant a Tree
A download equals a tree, assured
the dream creature who said she worked at a consulting firm
called Partly Knowledgeable.
To Hannah Lyons
Instead of raising my hand and admitting to my incorrectness,
I changed the “D” on my quiz by drawing another D just
above the preexisting one, avoiding our teacher’s sharp eye …
Elegy for a Ringmaster at Civilization’s End
Afterall, we are living,
now, in your America,
the air thick with arias
of insults, our neighbors mic’d,
their grievances caroling
out into the howling crowd.
Bell Bottom Trousers
Mine were brown velvet
lush as sable. ’70s wide and swinging,
swirling outward from my calves
Migrants
Strong boys to work on the farm.
The sad lot of migrants in the shadows.
The emaciated look of Mother Africa.
The uncertainties of the desert girls.
Selah
Image: “Lighthouse at the Edge of the World” by G.G. Silverman. “Selah” was written by Kristene Kaye Brown for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.