Poem

A pink dozen sunshine trapezoids—
It's good to be breathing
says an array of rosemary shrubs.
A field of illicit rocks, shrapnel, bees, germs unknown.
Hands held. Back seats checked for sleeping.

I have made a Tuesday monument 
of a baby's toothbrush lying on the sidewalk alone.

The far lake no one knows about, bitching its ripples. 

In this case it 
doesn't matter what other people need 
in measures of solitude; You 
need a few years, a few more years 
alone. And it's such a popular
slur to hurl: You will always be alone. 
I've been told that—
(Eight years ago.)

(And knowing slowly as I go how to hold a garden here.)

Copyright © 2012 by Cynthia Arrieu-King. Used with permission of the author.