​birds won't quit

take to this back
your claws

-an elephant's
peanut

meaning-

gone
from going

we circle one
another,

become square
smother seeds of promised green
beneath ignorant feet.

a hedgerow
made of
trespass
-you-
when we speak,

getting poor
on
the oil
of each other.



This is Lester Allen's 2nd appearance in Up the Staircase