Alison Stone
This Season
The lethargic Oak King’s slain.
Slow or stubborn birds remain.
Ghosts in rear-view mirrors.
Skeletons seen from a train.
Mother’s empty seat. Father’s barbed-wire
embrace. Dull colors of pain.
Windows locked. Flirty dresses packed
away. Fox turned to bloodstain.
No one’s daughter, she stacks photo albums
in boxes. Aging legs complain.
Sky gray as old bandages. Ghouls hang from
poles, mouths open to explain.
Mist thickens like grief. Sponge clouds blot blue
from the sky. Deer starve again.
Face of a woman without a father –
Eyes, blue wounds. Mouth a small stain.
Fake blood on plastic fiends. Real blood on fence
spikes. Graveyards along the lane.
Good-sport principal dressed as a flamingo.
Praise to festiveness we feign.
Time, Stone, to euthanize relationships.
Move on. Let the dead love drain.
Other work by Alison Stone