‘When I Wish I Was A Knot’, ‘Summer Storms Are Exhibitionists’ & ‘It’s a $300 Fine If I Don’t Cut My Backyard’
David Summerfield’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and photo art has appeared in numerous literary magazines/journals/and reviews. He’s also been editor, columnist, and contributor to various publications within his home state of West Virginia. He is a graduate of Frostburg State University, Maryland, and a veteran of the Iraq war. View his work at davidsummerfieldcreates.com
When I Wish I Was A Knot
They’re:
vintage spools;
discarded twine;
a rat king’s crown;
thrift store necklaces;
cloud-hugging contrails;
tossed around paperclips;
hand-me-down Christmas lights;
calcified remains of a prehistoric mother-to-be;
prematurely torn hair in a dollar store scrunchie;
Summer Storms Are Exhibitionists
the electric pulse meets in the middle
between the forlorn lovers of earth and sky
lost long ago before records could remember
and their excitement climax is exerted
in a brilliant blast of jagged light that sears
through unwilling, unwitting victims
witness to the exhibitionist ways
of nature’s smitten heart
and the rumbling thunder that floods
ears open to the whispers of hidden
birds protected in their nests
but instead subjected to the screams of joy
heaven and hell have come together for
It’s a $300 Fine If I Don’t Cut My Backyard
a sadness rocks back and forth
with the shuffling and
tension building in the arches
and soles of
feet coated in socks the colors of ashes
wiped in mourning
as the morning comes
and the dew settles upon the decapitated
stalk of freshly wacked grass and
plants designated weeds
by the city council
long before I moved in and let my yard
grow wild
around me
where my dogs played hide and seek
running like predatory antelopes
and I can’t help but cry for the loss
of lightning bugs as their innards
twinkle in the grass
mutilated by strings moving the speed
of helicopter wings
that took insect wings for their own mechanical gain
and I can’t help but ache for the loss
of safety that the
wild rabbits native to the midwestern suburbs
as their ground cover is removed
their barrier between life and
my dogs’ overenthusiastically deadly teeth
and I’m left with soon-dead seeds
in the canvas crevices of
sawdusted sneakers
and I hold the borrowed weed whacker
hoping that the battery lasts so
I don’t have commit atrocities against nature
for much longer
Kelly Lynn (she/her) is a queer author originally from northern Maryland but now lives in east central Indiana, where she lives with her two polar opposite rescue pooches and one rehab horse she calls Pony Boy. She holds a double BA in Creative Writing and Communications from Susquehanna University where she attended college six years late as An Old. Her first published poems are forthcoming or recently published with Gabby&Min, Moonstone Arts Center, and/or TPT Magazine. In her free time, Kelly pretends to write her debut novel but mostly just watches YouTube.
