A flask-shaped bald head
olive-black eyes. Short chestnut
brown eyebrows. Oshkosh B’gosh
overalls and an ultraviolet purple
sleeved shirt. Like small dolls
patched with the materials of a day’s harvest
sinking into the earth
into a wormhole of foliage, laughing at nothing
but the act of knowing that sometimes it’s common
and good to laugh at nothing. We played
unconcealed. Outside. Submerged in
winding branches and brittle, lifeless leaves
laying on a basket filled with the fluorescence of eggs.
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 USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Havana Times, South China Morning Post, The Buffalo News, and more.
See all his poems on Tea House here.