Children see melodies
crackling, jumping, stretching,
crowding, living
like hummingbird bones taking
off
from a cage of suet.
They see corn,
millet, oats, and sunflowers,
devoured
into the bloodstream, racing
down the arteries of a secret language,
a communication flooding
the transcendent,
and the soft distance
of headlights, as she waits
for him to come back.
Children see storm clouds
and distant planets,
the tendons of other animals
moving about,
and the seconds growing
rarer and more precious
until they are
turned into tiny heart-shaped
sapphires
gently smoothed into
thin, pine needle sharp points.
They see tears,
dampened napkins
and the concealed rot
of a mother’s disease.
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, the Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Havana Times, the South China Morning Post, the Buffalo News, and more.