Praise to the Window Blinds

The Lady of the afternoon shades remains
caustically unembarrassed and better on intemperate days,
blinded in summer in winter in spring
she listens to her heart shivering
pop goes the eschatological cherry
bath bubbles rising in the froth
the sun is a succulent Dairy Queen malt
The Lady of the afternoon shade preserves
her heart inside a locket and a chain
a big sun today its cream rises to the top
a set of keys a house light an Easter Cross
she cannot slit the blinds     won’t in the meantime
the last sliver the big sun looking ahead
bad weather     an Atomic Café malt tomorrow
The Beatles sang “It’s Getting Better All the Time”
She was less unrepentant then
her generation’s anthem     flotsam and jetsam
the brightness is a peeping Tom shady lady
before her midday stab at reading The Lord of the Rings
Easter Sunday coming a futureless orange peel morn. 

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Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

is a poet, playwright, performance artist, essayist, journalist and syndicated columnist whose articles on poverty, race relations, civil rights, Southern history and African American history  have appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, The Christian Science Monitor, The Atlantic, Dissent, The Washington Post, New Politics, Crisis (The NAACP magazine), Huffington Post, N+1, Talk Poverty, and The Guardian. His chapbook, Life’s Prisoners, the recipient of the 2017 Turtle Island Quarterly poetry chapbook award, was published in November of 2017. He presently lives in Santa Fe, NM.