fake spring

firstborn eats the sun like it's candy, a lemon drop between

her teeth, fat and yellow like a taxi cab. forty seconds down

hill street and the light is all broken up, twisting under pools

of gas [tulip petal blood]. she likes pale yellow like dumpling

clouds, yellow like the way the snow drips into puddles

and dribbles gold, the way the crows cough up an aria from

their throats and spit it out onto the sidewalk. yellow like the way

everyone turns and watches her sprint down the scarlet-stained

gravel as if there's glass wedged in her heels, as if she's running

from something that she doesn't quite know. perhaps a sunset.

maybe herself.