to shed (poem)

to shed

if you’ve gone out walking the mission has an end goal

arriving at the place with sacks, or lacking beggary

for help they’ve hindered you

forms dropped duly at addresses

or into pockets, coating individual

per contents, you seek to do kind works for nature

closer now, soon to live in. Offering free services of counsel

entrepreneurial favors just as apt to be returned

you meet your pal down by the river

wanting dock and pokes

bindweeds, elders, all of those

that would seem sensible

in a world able to take a joke

to figure speech, handloomings of conceits

into magic without starting rabbit holes

mindsinks for new pretenders

Rise and Rebel, you psychically command, be unsympathizing

have something garnished from your high hopes, antagonist

and be reminded

at odd times, whenever the door rests

unknocked, be knitted into this mess like the human hair

of the knitter, imagine someone sager

seeding flavored red and blue

pellets of cereal grain and sugar

imagine this balanced breakfast consumed

your sneak back-engineering of evolution

this is better, to sit in a buzzy daze and wait for birds

than to mortify yourself with nettles

while Nero burns

to shed

Side of Life

(2021, Stephanie Foster)