A Chatterbug’s Memoires

A Chatterbug’s Memoires

Before self-anointing try a means test

Have conference with the ash tree’s railing leaves

The dying fighter not yet wholly girdled

A corpse of heartwood chip by chip stripped clean

Bad tidings brought by an agent of the bourse

Make every act of treason underpay

Chapters of a chatterbug’s memoires

A shallow inflow floats a tug cross-channel

The salty dog’s crow’s feet and cheeks empurpled

Empaneled to assess this loss A-plus

Typifiers of their class breathe in

Gasses sweated from the borer’s skin

Remorse the last effective incantation

The fault that saves itself by being spoken

Piecemeal reprieves attrit into salvations

And manifestos detailed point by point

Fail in unfriendly execution

We forget

Tiny machines will wax and wane

Filling every pore

And would remain

A Chatterbug’s Memoires

(2018, Stephanie Foster)