STATE FAIR Conspiracy
well, Septembers to her final strawberries to her and the stark crows’
murex-black sheen
murmuring behind doors here’s the underworld complex of warning
and his banshees’
diligence and practice that never pried open her intimate
Waiting
lone on the fairgrounds here
strolling families
here are the toughs and young
lovers
he banks off
the highway into the corn field’s green sheath torpedoes
silken hair
playthings of viper and worm
Russian Shawl
OUR CROWD tucks in the great estate’s throned nook
shooting breezes mumbling our feet of clay
New Terms penmanship crabs out of her nautilus
rollout & ponder this stump of motherhood on separate hallowed farms
I’ll unpack the hall of mirrors now I’ll broider
thick roses on thick
black wool’s sprawl
of Siberian railroads doubling the fringe
I’ll knot the rattling the end of
the line
of our old lawn’s broad Doric intervals
waiting for Honey to drop from the spoon
full forgetting who sits in your lap ghosting their own wander hall
wafting a little dancing a little
and laughing around the pay phone
chartering nosedives of twirl
winged yet heavy hoarse absolutely invaded
&
utterly emptied my unmoored beloved strikes out for the highway
a new route to penniless freeform bellowing crying in a seam of wind
a tattered messenger flipping heads/tails
forgetting on one side on the other the floating world
a pointless binary
come home come home
be yourself again on the balcony again in the garden in
the pots and pans of all-purpose flour in whole whole milk
Karen Garthe is author of four poetry collections Vagrant (one) in thin air, the hauntRoad, The Banjo Clock, and Frayed escort. Her poetry and essays have appeared in journals, including HERE, Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and Opinion, New American Writing, and many others.