The Maynard
Fall 2018

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(Lady)bug

I’ve got gold           wings
with wind-tossed leaves for
with wind-tossed fingers

They need time to bloom.

I’m real, a pale-mirrored reflection, starving for picture’s color
Naked with (bumble bee) stings, hugging narrow
Hips.

Time knows
            the tender folds of
                                          my stomach,

ripples of closed places.

The locked attic cluttered with my brown-boxed childhood.
The basement played the samba of my voice.
To a scratched plastic Fisher Price drum set
And the cracks in the blue-black-tiled-floor.

We used to ride our bicycles, before
We used to ride our bicycles, I skinned my knees
We used to ride our bicycles, I skinned my kin the park.

Never caught in a              collector’s jam jar,
We spent our naked time on              training wheels.
Around we went, peering out windows
And when we could, we flew to the
Uncharted corners of our rose-colored world.

Remember when we were just green
twigs in love with patched baby grass,
swaying on our
swaying on our painted toes?

In the clouds
In the clouds Gravity saw us
In the clouds Gravity saw us but we seldom
In the clouds Gravity saw us but we seldom fell.

To the weeds we picked: hideous dandelions;
the thorns of our guarded ancestors: rose bushes left unplucked.
Our bleeding fingers starved for billowing wind,
99-cent firecrackers spent on 4th of July to
teens swallowing (and choking) on the honey.

Our bees never stung like theirs did, we were
Our bees never stung like theirs did, we were (lady)bugs,
Our bees never stung like theirs did, we were (lady)bugs, red, and black with clear,
                                                                                            cupid-esque wings.