Greg Loveseth
sour grass and dandelions
something's going on in Oakland-dandelions are swelling fat-yellow,
shooting up across the street from pink and blue lust motels
where a woman steps out from a
room,
arms wrapped around a cloud of dirty sheets,
next door the All Souls Church-
it's paneless windows turned portals for black ghosts who ascended towards Venus,
leaving smoke tears running up the walls,
strung out the moaning eyes, a weathered sign asks for donations,
dandelions push their crisp hollow milk-flowing purple through cement,
ready for kissing at the bruised shins of neighborhood kids;
fields of sour grass like hundreds of electric-gold trumpets popping up in empty lots,
children walk with long bobbing from their mouths
petals brightening the way as they suck at the acid-juice,
laugh loud about dog-piss flavor, leave a trail of chewed up green worms in their wake,
the air tasting a little sweeter;
beneath the shadow of the steel fence's razor wire shimmer,
stems mimic the curve of haunches that click past every night,
as headlights set aglow petals and the bare legged ladies tight-roping the red curb-
petals wanting nothing more than to be plucked and stuck into a hole as a compliment to hard beauty,
the next morning held in the hands of the cloud-woman