“(Waterfall) (Weathervane) Template”

by Beth Gordon

Tune the piano to left-handed scales.

Practice waterfall scenes in acrylic 

or chalk. Choose the palette with care. Wheat 

brick yellow, mercurochrome red: understand

these decisions will haunt you tomorrow.

Save your ethical quandary for the dark 

room door. To open is to extinguish

with light. The tunnel. The time bomb chewing

through necessary shades of green: pinwheel 

lime and forest floor. Do not consider

windmills or weathervanes. Spinning is death

in disguise. Paint parallel lines of highways

and corn fields as seen from thirty thousand

feet. Sketch the eight exit signs on this plane.

Beth Gordon is a poet, mother and grandmother currently living in Asheville, NC. Her poetry has been widely published and nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and the OrisonAnthology. She is the author of two previous chapbooks, and her full-length poetry collection, This Small Machine of Prayer, was published in 2021 (Kelsay Books). Her third chapbook, The Water Cycle, is being published by Variant Lit in February 2022. She is Managing Editor of Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Assistant Editor of Animal Heart Press, and Grandma of Femme Salve Books.