Tap-Dancing Fingers on Overdrive

—Anonymous Photos
—Poetry by Alyssa Trivett

MOWERS

Although I live in suburbia,
I am still trying to decipher
why all the mimes
rev up their mowers
at the most inconsistent time?
Think nineties Monster Truck commercials
at the arena,
a demolition derby heartbeat
giving your lawn a waxing and weaving.
I would pop my head out the
train station ticket thick glass window
but my nerves tell me to continue
tap-dancing on and continue to
jack-in-the-box peddle these keys,
so I do.

GRIEF, WEEKDAY EVENING

I bowling roll the grief into stitched lines
and let 'em seep into the wall
like morphine in my IV drip during appendix surgery,
that shit made my head spin and threw my artistic ways
on an electric car remote control track
only to veer off and vroom down the basement stairs
and years later roller coaster jolt my nerves and wrists
and I saw my veins pop outta my arms today
like a broken toothpick house
lingering in the wind.
But I found a way,
and I used it;
instead of stabbing the pen into the paper,
I put 'em tap-dancing fingers on overdrive
'til the arms fell off from
a jittery coffee-cup day at the office.
Onward.

CEMETERY TOURS

We received our own grand tour
of playing hopscotch over
scarred roads
in the Jurassic Park tree branch
suburban July gravestone jungle.
We seep in air conditioning,
take cover from the toothbrush
branches hogtied to our windows,
hear peace in birdsong
and let heat wash our skin away,
to piece together your final
resting place.

HOSPITAL PARKING LOT A

A golf cart with
creaky wheels approaches,
rusted edges tail-side.
Driver with messenger hat
relays to me,
would I like a ride?
I reply, coffee cup bobbing in the wind...
No thank you, it's such a beautiful day.
I'd rather walk the fifty feet.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley

__________________

Our thanks to Alyssa Trivett for today’s fine poetry. Alyssa is a wandering soul from the Midwest. When not working two jobs, she listens to music, chirps down coffee, and scrawls lines on the back of gas station receipts. Her work has appeared recently at In Between Hangovers, Gold Dust Poetry Magazine, and Apricity Magazine.

Gail Entrekin writes that the Summer Solstice issue of Canary Magazine is now available at canarylitmag.org/.

—Medusa

Alyssa Trivett 

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