Cupped Butter

Poetry by Olivia Louise Vande Woude ⊕ Art by time-flys-12x12Robert Bowen

 

To find his buttercup eyes

follow route 15

 

Wave at book shops

hosting 50,000 novels

motorist prayers

laminated and

used as bookmarks.

 

Pass sage

clapboards with milk

bottles in windows,

and bird baths and vegetables for sale.

 

The air is basil tinged there

his lemon skin

approaches

cracked liquor

bottles with lips

like ginger thins.

 

On striped sheets, sit

empty cans of peanuts,

folded carnival rides,

and empty cars of trains,

tracks of peppermint seersucker

arrivals of perspiration at midnight.

 

Trusting phrase

See you next year

is carved in the breeze

vinegar stained,

gusts nudging masts

to strum their presence.

 

His corrupt teeth,

fine combed hairs

watch a balding eagle.

 

He cannot name the word for the bird

he once taught his grandchild.

Instead his hands flail

encouraging its majesty to leave

his pine perch

 

shouting

 

fly!

 

giggling

 

tickle tickle

 

whispering softly

 

fly.

 

Eagle soars

knows his last summer on the coast is

dusted by buttercups

that taste

bitter

and bite.

lucky-strike-8-w-a-s-p-24x48

 

Olivia Vande Woude is a senior in high school from Charlottesville, Virginia. She has been writing stories for most of her life, and has recently focused her attention on writing poetry. She was selected to read her work at the Virginia Festival of the Book and her work has been featured in Literary Orphans, Stepping Stones Magazine, Poetry Space U.K., The Sacred Cow Magazine, Carnival Magazine, Poetry Super Highway, Canvas literary magazine, and other literary magazines. Olivia is an intern at Tupelo Press Teen Writing Center, where she is co-editor of the Crossroads Anthology.

See more Robert Bowen art at www.robertbowenart.com

 

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