Peter Jay Shippy

I walk in the park
and select a maple leaf.

With my Sharpie I write:
...

The farmer sent his child
Deep into the orchard
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The village used a bank
of flat-screen monitors
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They say they found me in frozen foods, stretched out
in the cephalopod case, rowing the air
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They told me, fetch the jawbreaker
They told me, take down the wash
They told me, any day now, any day
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He leaned against the wall
And considered the shadows
Stippling the ground. Tree? Silo?
...

Seemed like a first-rate strategy, Your Honor,
A way for me to gift verse to the wee set
Or, if you like, a mode to re-modal raw
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After his death he frittered
His being in Bangor watching
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A night of freezing rain has turned the snow banks
into Eames, into molded plastic
...

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I watch my neighbor cut our grass
With his teeth. Clouds pass under
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The large body waltzed the small body
Across the room. A mother and child?
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Because his neighbor was a witch
Lucas agreed to paint her house
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Mother died today or was it yesterday,
I can't quite remember, is funny unless
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As the cellist played a gigue, Bach,
at Virgil's, a cantina on Salem Street
...

Draw a zigzag moustache below my nose
in permanent ink, stain my lips with black cherries,
...

The birthday party was evaporating, the cake,
crumbs, the donkey, pinned, Mary-the-boy-pony
...

When he was 12, he was voted
Most likely to become Satan's spawn
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Each night I prune
your bandages
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A mouth sings ballads, a mouth sucks a lemon,
a mouth hides uncouth words under its tongue,
...