Wild Mustard
The
wild mustard in California sun yellow mustard yellow spice filling a jar then
spread across bread eaten believed to taste good smear left on napkins on a
table not in California of course I am remembering the world as it was much to remember
many attempts to forget then the almond orchards of white bloom beautiful among
the letters of the alphabet Cuba also beginning with that half moon rising over
the trees there caught in my name then all that comes with bloom butterflies
birds yellow butter spread as a blanket over what needs now to be warm growing
colder unless summer comes wildfires burn in the hills reach into windows I
leave again always leaving this chance to see Castro in a blue jacket and
baseball cap sits in a car reaching out to shake the hands of tourists from
Venezuela what did it all mean except that his name begins with that half moon
whose light is the curve of a harbor the boats at the dock the world tied up
ready to sail away always leaving every four years running through wild mustard
until I am no longer anywhere I recognize who sold my world short did not shake
my hand quarreled no longer able to love this disappearance of yellow the
failure of words to raise what flag.
Posted 02/24/16
Published in Wilderness House Literary Review Jan 2016