newest writing at 42opus

Bald white trunk & dead black bark, toc-toc. Small shrugs

in long black coats, their stripped pine whipping at the skyline…

swiftly unveiled, in twos and threes, ravens and the ideas

of ravens drip down onto the air, black silk scarves

pulling each other through the silk blue sleeves

in a wintry sky & out into the mind's eye to stall and dip…

When I first bought my plastic ficus he was small, about as high as my knees. The bottom half of him was buried in a plastic, earth colored pot that looked heavier than it really was and there was a bed of faux-moss covering his lack of roots.

I wanted him for my home office because I was missing summer in the middle of November. He had been dumped onto the sale shelf and I saw him and knew that it was meant to be. His glossy leaves reflected the fluorescent lights in a way that was perfectly unnatural and completely beautiful to me.