49.

Don’t drape chiffons.
Don’t even
substitute newspapers
for the silk.
Rather, if you must,
one strand
of a necklace,
caught and blowing
off one leg,
all the other
legs bare;
the strand only,
the pearls long
since dropped back
to earth.


50.

Not far from 
where a Mafioso 
left those terrible
plastic bags
two boys dig
in the forest.
They know
China
doesn’t lie 
on the far side
of the trench,
only the Indian Ocean.
Tired, they walk away,
a millipede forgotten
in a pocket,
curled in light
that sifts through
the pocket’s
cotton weave.
Forget the legs.
Render just
the lattice of light.
Spare pencil.

Peter Waldor | Mudlark No. 36
Contents | Leg Paint 1/2