Green Velvet Poem by Martha Zweig

Shallows: kayak bobs me to drowse like Moses,
river-foundling. Curtsey & skim me, cordial
reeds. Divert a princess to bare her feet to
splash in & grab me!

Cushy sinecure, the composer lily-
paddles note-to-note on her staff. Her turban
snags & launches damselflies: tip my finger,
flick off to founder.

*
Gown milady's seamstress devised of twenty-
seven thousand senseless male mallard heads has
left the lake unthinkable, vapid; drags her
hips in its torpor.

Interregnum. Mildew corrupts the palace.
Blabbermouths collaborate; latterday-&-
dark they flap & yackety-yack behind an
overrun garden.

Centuries-to-let: our descendants swap &
furnish makeshift terraces, north wing, south wing.
Plush-upholstered boulders indulge the fog that
sifts in the cedars.