Kyran Pittman

Mayday

The honeysuckle sneaks up sublime and opiate
finding my foreignness more penetrable year after year.
I’m nowhere near as slick as I used to be.
Back when I was always just passing through
all sweetness would roll off me
as water fails on oilskin.
Now one drawling
redolent whisper
and I’m tangled in its sticky perfume
tacked beneath the writhing wisteria
the canopy of sweet gum, the kudzu
like sorghum
conspiring to bind me to this place. 

Daddy calls to say it’s snowing
Back home there’s a saying for May snow
I can’t remember and a texture
my mind effaces with abstractions.
White. Cold.
My memory jettisoned like horses
overboard and me, sinking fast
at last succumbing. 

(say it
slowly almost
moan it: 

honey suckle) 

I don’t think I can go back.

(photo by Robert O'Nale)