"Kitchen Grief" (7-Minute NaPoWriMo Poem for 4/13)

Kitchen Grief




See the buzzards over Boulder
today. Dead hot. Earthquake weather
if it'd been on the coast. Circling
calculation. What station the next
body lay? The birds above the quad
over the head of an upturned Dalton;
Trumbo's all handed, all heart mission.
The bay of sky opening to the merchant ships,
the clouds, the few skiffs of passion
still lingering around the campus. Jesse,
dead but not yet buried, laid out today,
his boyish laugh laid to rest -- un sueño
in a glass of remembrance. The promise
of spring heavy as the odor of a hung-over
senior. All the misconceptions loaded
in a carafe of courage. These bold plans
now a kitchen of grief, the feasting
yet to come. And a single contract
is signed with a pledge of loyalty
and a drink to that. As the buzzards
of Boulder move up for a closer inspection
in this season of suicide and falling grades,
a full-blown something laid to nest
beside the roadside -- a ring of caps,
a circle of camps.






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written in 7 minutes for National Poetry Writing Month

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