Clean Up On Aisle Six

My dissembling tosses a thousand jacks
on the path in front of us.
We walk barefoot.

So much for this garden joy.
This place couples gather to be married.
This cool shade of overarching trees.

Dora trembles, her sole struck.
Her face blanches twitched muscles.
She maintains a smile.

We sit on an empty peach box waiting to be filled.
We navigate the traps of my uncouth tongue.
We discuss how undoing is a most difficult chore.

On hands and knees we work together.
Hands pass a quarter inch above the ground.
Organic metal detectors on broad sweeps.

Morning passes into noon through this task.
We account for all the jacks but one.
A packrat stole that jack—now a sculpture in its den.

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copyright © 2019 Kenneth P. Gurney