Xanthic the Day, Cyanic the Day
Fulgent the day teeters between dried
leaf bits and a heat reminiscent
of summer. The tractor kicks up dust,
corn husks. Hay-bale bounced we weave deeper
into scythed fields. Pumpkins dot the ruts
the grid like a Mondrian, tonal
palette a Picasso after Braque.
Quest for the perfect gourd : consistent
shape, stem fit-gripped, not bottom-rotten
not side-flat not mush-turned-beetle-shine.
Vine-tangled we end the check, select,
weighed and stickered : thirty cents a pound.
And later our incisions precise
as a sculptor-surgeon’s we probe, touch
frosty innards, measure the rind’s width,
separate seeds from the guts, tray-salt,
oven hiss, trace and prick faint patterns :
reversed relief of shallow dots mine
a memento mori skull all tooth
and grin, yours grave-risen and white sheet-
clad soul haunted haunting wiggle ghost.
Matthew Hittinger is the author of the chapbooks Pear Slip (Spire Press, 2007) winner of the Spire 2006 Chapbook Award, Narcissus Resists (GOSS183/MiPOesias, 2009), and Platos de Sal (Seven Kitchens Press, 2009). He lives and works in New York City.
