Sea Grape (A Decaying-Flourishing Sestina)

With a nod to Lawrence Schimel

An expanse of green———

green hands, green being

after close green being turning

up the heat, green table

linen evening out itself, green jam

of evening, green grocers’ wah-wahs,

swirling green curtains. I am a vase 

of trampolining green, an evergreen

vamper, the greenest enjamb

-ment, but overseeing 

purple’s plunge to the table

is my number one purpose. The table

-top’s abounding Oohs! and Aahs!

agitate adjacent teeing

grounds, a soulless bowling green

that mock the bouldering green

of my botanic garden and table

the schlock of ever-disagreeing

fire-wielding thieves for whom being 

is bewildering as wild-green.

O machines unstable and ungreen!

On the lagoon, turntables of green

circle———yellow, pink and green

notes surge moonwards, keying

the sky’s lyre whose emceeing

amazes the rarest white label,

the moon. I drink in the in-between

days———unpinning seasoned green

hands, easing soft bronzes into being,

casting classic sweet-scented stars

at my pond’s centre. The table

-lands’ bees leaf through their timetable———

the razzle-dazzle, the zreeing

of chitin and hamuli cannot jam

on the brakes. I give the green

light———soft bronzes parse 

greening, streams of ivory lodestars

preen at green fingertips (green jam

jars’ green eyes squeak), green babel

fountain-leaps where it pleases, turning

out one hundred green peafowl. I am being

easy, but daydreaming about aquamarine.

Note: ‘green babel / fountain-leaps’ reworks ‘In my courtyard a fountain leaps’ from Sylvia Plath’s ‘Barren Woman’