VOXOxford Mississippi’s Independent Literary Journal

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Theo Hummer Dear Stars, dear bricks, dear acorns,

What we hold self-evident goes

without saying. What needs remark

is petrichor, the sap of stones, smell of

my leaf-oil loosed by rain from the dry

ground. My leaf-oil, mine. My tender blade unlike

another, though you lose me in the park, the later

twilight. So this too passes: So snow

dissolves in long raw mist: So we shoots must bow

to frost, the brand of Time, that worship-hog:

Wheelwright of what sprouts, I do not pray.

Old seedy uspect drinker, Time, tinkering

in a bungalow near the tracks. Near the corner

of the junkyard, luring strays or spilt

by windowlight that turns the potted parsley

into blockprint. Time, I do not pray. You’re one

among my field of souls who stumble through

the universe, penknives out to carve wuz here,

wuz here. What do we hold? This year’s

first rain—the risk of freeze not past—fills up

the crocuses’ golden throats. Plops on satin

willowbark, on toadstools, toads, their polliwogs.

Smell that? On concrete, trees, on other

parks. On rubber boots and squish. Creek swollen

with it and melt, churned and muddy now.

Dear stars, dear bricks and acorns, I’ve shown you

all my volatiles. Where falls the droplet who’ll

look for me? Who knows my smell by name?

My tiny green-furled fist—I shake it.

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