Carol Ellis

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

More by Carol Ellis

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