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Poetry

The House of Reinvention
__ —for Tracy Hasvold

__ “In the language of flowers Coreopsis means to be always cheerful,
__
while Coreopsis arkansa stands for love at first sight.”

 

There in the House of Reinvention I might become—not another which plagues me—but who I really am. Just down the wrong turn is the House of Correction where my mind has been dwelling for so many sentences. Out in the open courtyard the children have been singing the air is full of their voices like a meadow full of coreopsis. Someday I’ll join them among the wildflowers that grow in byways and along edges of fences. The cruel guards laugh at me with their philosophies. Their teeth have been replaced by steel. “You said coreopsis but meant corpses. And the Wise have explained the children’s song.”

The guards can never leave the House of Correction because they work there but I can leave quick as I can dream. I close my eyes and hear singing again. Meet me at the back door of the House of Reinvention. We can slip in easily. In the courtyard the chorus sings and corpses dance underground. Their crowns brush the roots of the coreopsis.

 

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