The Parable of Childhood and Impending Death
Monica Koeing
salute the I star
A summer lawns and U sky pushing their cartwheels
deep A and shallow A forests bending under the IU helicopter scooping up the earth.
E carnival lights setting the swinging O buckets down for landing.
up and uP and UP, it’s U tonight. they said that the ceiling
at the top of this ferris wheel should have been I.
I cards with A grass heroes in the steel U spokesflit
phflit blipht up the O walkways.
until the U of the guillotine is the last thing they see,
that is
unless they remember the dirt smell of the
A
lawn.
and the little children say,
the A is the green in stains on their knees
and U is the grey of smoke we’re told is white
and I is the blue on the uniforms of the boys that are dropped from the sky
and O is the yellow from dead flowers in Texas
and E is well, red. just red.
