The Hillside (poem)

The Hillside

Reprieve conserves tomorrow’s backwards step

Names you neither queen, nor good nor evil

Reprieve as a dogging mirror cold on counsel

Reminding you there’ll be no answer

No pattern but the sky

Giggles your new-poured coffee

Or the rain, just as the drops cease falling

And the tipster turns his back to your old face glancing

Gifting your audience a wall-smacking finale

A feint ill-chosen, a tendon’s spasm, a god-to-devil wink

Just a grin when you hunker by

That other kisser over your shoulder worrisome

What sort of mother says

“I wish I had a daughter white as snow, black as ebony

And red as blood”

Do you wish you could reduce your sleep and food

to never stirring

Let this stop on your climb be called enough

Your hands snatch after guilty evidences in the dream

before you wake

Still camped on your Everest, cramped and apoxical, never to scale

A figure cut short of tragedy, less lucky than the tailpipe

Venting ahead

Your toes may grip or not, you weren’t a toe-dancer in youth

You teeter

Begging fingers rise from the Valley of the Lepers

Riddled with the tunnelings of Little Helpers

For God’s sake, if all these mumblers and shufflers can do

Is stand, in the public pillory, and spit their hints

Still we’ll take down names and faces

And assess that this much stake is

Fair proof of a lifetime of intent

The Hillside

The Lab-Grown Brain Makes Philosophy

(2019, Stephanie Foster)