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the million monarchs of myself
finding rest in your trees
overwintering overjoyed

having traveled farther than I know
knowing to travel farther

a myriad myriad disparate oranges
moving into and be moved into
one truest most massive orange

over smeared and obliterative last-nights
and disheveled impossible yesterdays

over star-flung last-nights and
perfectly intricate yesterdays

having ascended a mile up into bluest heights
and swayed on the tips of colorless weeds

the currents have brought me here
and my instincts have brought me here
and great-big invisible hands my tiny eyes can’t see
have brought me here

in the warmths of your canopy
I flitter and then cling

knowing I will survive and thrive
covering your every surface with life
overwintering then oversoaring

swarming up until even my shadows are fluttering
throwing my colors into the sky

lofted from your hands

it is one hundred degrees today
celsius
the sweat vapor around my head
conducts more clearly undulating cicadasong

dusty roads grow dustier

a porcine man sits in front of a boxfan daydreaming
of winter(when he’ll daydream of summer)

lazy dogs get lazier

two nineyearolds with twodayold buzzcuts
throw down their fishingpoles
plunge buttfirst into a turbid pond
concluding that if you can’t extract fish you might as well join them

long days lengthen

a preacher’s wife constructs a witticism
with plastic letters on a (rusting) flashingarrowsign
(no bulbs burning pointing churchward)
two days later it reads:
“bea the heat ge saved”

nomenclatorial gropings:the
wordsmith’s befuddled.what
words fail in the presence of
bedimpled auraed
woman!

syllables like children bounce
and giggle
merry, (they)
go ’round
stir up dust
wear themselves out

trying to define your glow
a note is
that i’ll never be able to hit
but i caterwaul
working for that sound
stirring up (fairy)dust
merrily going ’round
bemused by your
wow

encircled by your arms
i vibrate at the same frequency as spring
just equinoxed
i bloom anew
like little wild flowers mown pop

braced by your legs
i radiate at the same wavelength as postrain sun
just unclouded
illuminating greening trees
giving purple ones white ones to burst with

osculant to your belly
my lips whisper i-love-yous
at the same magnitude as birdbeaks poking into soil
hungry
finding wiggling things

you wriggle as i vibrate
you brace as i belly into you
you lip
circles

help me(,mama,)
be a hummingbird able to hover
suck nectar in a trance
flapping my wings so fast they can only be felt
small enough not to be heard
giant enough that the universe doesn’t exist without me
hold my hand
then let me go sometimes

watch me be a condor
able to eat death and be ugly

give me the strength to be the point of a goose V southward striving
show me how to be a few geese back
help me(,mama,)
be an albatross without making toomany shadows

i like that you are thirteen different parakeets
thirteen different colors
twentysix different sizes
i like that sometimes you are not even a parakeet

bring me a worm
make me dig my own

(i’m a)
rara avis
flightless bird
tern tern tern

(holy spirit come down in the form of a dove)

© 2024 Travis Chaney

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