Insurgence
Too stunned to know their children,
they wake in shallow graves — women missing
feet, breast, ear — untied hair frozen in alarm.
Brown leaves scuff across dark face holes.
Crouched bushes poke pencil-sharp sticks.
Trees hurl arcs of dirty water.
Where are we? Soil fouls their bitter words.
How dare you care? the Ides reply, zipping their trousers.
Licking scratched snow with newly sprouted tongues,
they begin to seep and patter, pick open tunnels,
peck for seeds and suet, scent the frigid mud.
Vees of exhausted geese drag the sky.
Rising, they rake cold clouds,
unveil the mewling dawn.
Charlotte M. Porter lives and writes in an old citrus hamlet in North Central Florida. Find her most recent poems, mostly political, in Neologism, Broken Antler Magazine, Apofonie (Ukraine), The Garlic Press, and Hogtowne Quill.
The Marbled Sigh 