do not land in my palm because they trust me.
I am a phantom they barely notice. They sense my body heat,
the blood coaxed through my thin veins like tree sap, and they hear
my vibrations, the way Beethoven coped with going deaf, stopping
long enough to bathe their tawny-colored tongues with seed, crushed
seashells of safflower and thistle, feeding the groaning earth.
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.
