A thousand snatches of color comes courtesy of the burned-out light above the Pinball section

area at the Nickelcade next to the graveyard that has all the weird, beautiful giant orbs of color it sets out on the ground around the holidays

 

Straps of flowers stole from the walk to get breakfast every morning hang in twirling strips from the ceiling, same as the thin red peppers your great-aunt Helene kept on strings to dry in her kitchen down in Houma

 

Slow hum of the fan oscillating along your prone form, hitting just like the breeze would when you & your brother would be on the trampoline, bouncing as high as your young legs would let, doing your best impressions of a bullfrog jump to try and see up over the safety netting, out to the woods, where you're both certain a thing of evil lurks & the only thing up for discussion is to whether it's a werewolf or serial killer

 

You have Jimmy Eat World (the one with 5 star banger "The Middle" on it, but the whole album is a banger in of itself) playing on your wireless earbuds you got for a deep discount online & you waited specifically for this pair to go on sale because it was the gaudy pink that just makes your trash fashion gay heart swoon

 

Tomorrow will be hell screaming madness a thousand little lightning strikes of anxiety rage fury rage hell rage hell rage hell hell hell

 

 

Tonight

You're drenched in beauty

You're doused in bliss

& it'll be doubly so

once you're off to bed

with your wife 

& y'all's cuddly cat

 

A thousand snatches of color ricochet off the straps of flowers hanging off the ceiling as the oscillating fan makes them dance to "The Authority Song."

 

drenched in beauty

doused in bliss

 

Silk waves on a windowsil on a rolling desert night

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Clem Flowers (They/ Them) is a poet, pizza man lover, happily married& poetry editor of Blue River Review with 3 chaps, a Best of the Net & Pushcart noms. Nb, bi, & queer af. @clem_flowers on Twitter