It's Still Life

Pressed Between Estop and Ethiopia

I’ve never heard a cuckoo sing.
I lost that moment of spring
to the big city, to its noise,
and roar and smoke and feet,
which might explain why I press
flowers and leaves between
unabridged dictionary pages,
(usually between estop and Ethiopia)
in weighty books and scrapped paper,
and waxed sheets for swollen stems.
And those autumn leaves, just fallen,
gaunt and red and turned copper,
lined, prodded and straightened
like a story retold for bedtime,
suitable pages of heavy darkness,
hidden like illicit love letters.
And then years later, by accident,
you stumble across that pressed moment,
there between estop and Ethiopia,
and its phantom wings are thrown
open into a long and found embrace.
Such a fragile beauty it’s become,
an emaciated memory so near dust.
A faint twitch of sleep that dreams.
Like an acorn — lost by stealth.

for Miz Quickly’s “Change” prompt and Poetic Bloomings “Winning and Losing“