Little White Crosses
poem by Donavon Davidson
First kisses given, bees take
when they disappear,
and, when dying of boredom,
the bullet.
Having nothing to sweeten our coffee,
having no apples to speak of,
we open the black mouth
to a long factory,
and everything made comes out
thin shadowed in ditches
before the sun rises.
Vein of alley light,
open a boy’s head.
Stain a girl’s lips green.
A landscape of tiny crosses
is hypnotized by a marching band
cleaning the streets
of birds and sickly coughs.
And the rain has yet to come
with its book dedicated to
tragic love.
*
The major earthquake is long overdue.
Landslides are expected.
This is a home
sliding off a cliff.
This is a child
desiring greener seas.
Every day is an exercise in silence,
every body, practicing a private death
quietly in an apple’s
tiny cross,
hiding in what’s red and sweet.
A wooden horse
has been placed beneath our window,
waiting for a man dressed in animal skins
to stop hunting
the enormous shadow of night.
It’s been wanting to open for years,
along with the lighthouse
of a firefly
buried in the glass jar of my headache,
and the white egg
continuously falling in your hip.
When the music’s over
we might as well invent a fire
so someone will see.
It’s about to rain on us
or become entirely too dark.
——–
Donavon Davidson