Oh cottonwood
you raker of the breeze
with brittle noisy
shield-shaped tongues
you whisper through
your spidery veins
at the sky
The False Prophet took a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was a poem. While writing it, he remembered, he felt like he was solving a puzzle. Originally, when Joe Kaye first developed the theory that he had left a message for himself in a past life, he thought he might have been Robert Frost. He had written this poem, to either prove that he was or wasn’t the reincarnation of Robert Frost.
There’s a Robinson in Tulsa
milking Toggenburg goats. And one
in Sri Lanka, peeling cinnamon.
A Filipino Robinson impales tourist
Sitting on metal chairs under
an umbrella, we watch the lightning
crack in the sky like flint.
She takes off her makeup
with chlorine and pink towels,
the rain bouncing off the roof
and dropping like snow