Cotton

Cotton

You rolled me up to store

in a tender corner, cleaned linen-white

to wipe a glass delirium full

of Friday's crumpled cotton night.

Outside the walls grew red

with curious oleander,

sun's slow summer urge 

to break the blizzard's back,

still I spread soft,

your burden and your bundle,

your thinking pile of rags

that sometimes brayed

the shrill laugh of Coyote in moonlight's shade

striping blue my fabric face

so briskly shaken into folds

yet at your sudden touch, so smooth and plain.

When the snapping slice of scissors came

to cut the muslin muzzle and cotton chains,

I knew I'd never be that soft, that clean again.

~July 2014 

posted for    real toads

Challenge: Play it Again

Margaret Bednar(Art Happens 365) has again chosen three Toads memes for us to revisit. I usually try to pick one I haven't done, but this time I went back to grapeling's first word list to borrow some inspiration. You can find my earlier poem for it here.

Image: Solarization, 1931, by Man Ray
Fair Use via wikiart.org