Thomas Quentin Sims (January 14,1978 / Laurel, Mississippi, USA)

the improvident queen spends and spends
she requests a shade on her path
as she walks the grounds
a canopy of oak branches winding up
the tactless queen would have those elders
dug up and cast out of the home
which they had been gifted
roots and branches snapping and breaking
and impatiently, the queen would wait
to walk in the courtyard
until the work of digging and repositioning giants
had been completed and made suitable
the fickle queen walks along the path
the shade almost noticed
before she begins to wonder if the path
should take another direction

(August 31,2009, New Orleans, LA, USA)