S. Ellis
Inscrutable Totems
. The more I think, the less I am
selling wax roses in Greenwich Village,
. cardinal red as the Golden State Freeway :
. where James Dean
. rehearsed his vanishing act :
. Jim, I see a heap
of horsepower about to heave into
. Americana,
. your jacket, a checkered flag :
. here, below the streetlamp,
a guy chats about hunting & misses
. the sunshine :
. wonders : is it raining
where the Porsche cleaved in two,
or has anyone even noticed the hoof marks
. on the shoulder? No
. one plans on living long
. enough to see it.
About the writer:
S.M. Ellis holds an MFA from New York University. Previous work has appeared in Paper Nautilus, Straylight Literary Review, Illuminations, Salamander, Columbia Journal, Iowa Review, and others.
Image: Untitled (abstraction) by Earle M. Pilgrim (1923-1976). No medium specified. No size specified. 1959. By free license.
