You Be the Judge

You stand and watch the patient rain.

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i.

Hey! Just calling to check in.
I didn’t want to call too soon!

I was hoping to catch you at home.
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With the meats and the poultry all spoiling
       for a terrible fight,
nutrient extraction is the natural objective.
       The produce, too, must be purified.

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O merriest, wiliest, and holiest of harlots! ~ Edward IV

She works the room the way she works words.
Her students lead thesauresed lives,
ape tropes poached from livid legends,
derive new meanings from stale or stolen selves:

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In computer science, conditional constructs are sometimes referred to as “If-Then-Else” statements: if a condition is met, then an action is performed; if the condition is not met, then an alternate action is executed.

What if I were
        to begin
                this poem with a declarative?

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after Helen Hunt Jackson’s “November”

This is the beguiling month when
autumn days betray my summer lusts,
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for Dawn Thompson

There is only one rule
of any real value
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Mrs. Butterworth stands on the windowsill
of the Christianson Ranch shack, whose door
stands agape with the hasp-screws rotted out.
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Forty years down our wilderness path,
neither I nor you recall the genesis.
All we know is our tweenaged selves
standing in shame before your holy father
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A poem maketh not the sun to rise,
    Obscureth not the wayward path at dusk—
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