Matthea Harvey

G P S

Gradations of Blue

The scent of pig is faint tonight
as the lime trees hang their heads against gradations of blue,

looking at the lone suitcase in the middle of the farmyard
with a sense of solidarity. Also forgotten.

Its owner never once looked up at them and exclaimed
I was still soft-fingered when I planted you.

In the plane, her gaze rests on a flock of cloud-birds,
pinkish purple with elongated necks, rests

on the plane’ s wing-tip colored pink by the sun.
Her head is heavy with this childhood cargo,

Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form

1.
Pity the bathtub that belongs to the queen its feet
Are bronze casts of the former queen’ s feet its sheen
A sign of fretting is that an inferior stone shows through
Where the marble is worn away with industrious
Polishing the tub does not take long it is tiny some say
Because the queen does not want room for splashing
The maid thinks otherwise she knows the king
Does not grip the queen nightly in his arms there are
Others the queen does not have lovers she obeys

Shiver & You Have Weather

In the aftermath of calculus
your toast fell butter-side down.

Squirrels swarmed the lawns
in flight patterns. The hovercraft

helped the waves along. From
every corner there was perspective.

On the billboards the diamonds
were real, in the stores, only zirconia.

I cc’ ed you. I let you know.
Sat down to write the Black Ice Memo.

Dinner would be meager &
reminiscent of next week’ s lunch.

So what if I sat on the sectional?
As always I was beside myself.