"Path of A Possum" by Gordon Marshall

Illustration by Samantha Scott-Heron



III

To spit the seeds of the rose
On the road home,
Eat the waxy hips,

Zip the check to the war chest
Pedal to the metal,
The wild ride out again

To the fighting fields
Wielding a lance
A broken bayonet

Derringer sliding out
The ripped pocket,
Pills to kill the chill

In the other
At war with Allah
Who cannot die…

The Holy Cross
Crusaders
Cheek by jowl

With Clark in Worcester
Where Freud, Head Shrink
Brought the plague,

Know as well as I
The battle is with the flesh
Eye stuck on lipstick lips

Smeared
By retractable tubes
With the rosy wax

Softer than the rosehips
Belying their thorns
As the lips secrete the teeth.

The rosehip is edible.
The English used the pith for syrup,
As we use maples,

Or maple mixed with corn
More commonly,
The indentured maid

Smiling on the label
From Vermont,
Or the deep South…

The notes of colonial and civil
Rebellion blare from glass
Or plastic, poured on pancakes,

The great American way.
It’s the price you pay
For the breakfast of champions,

Arnold on Lake Champlain,
Lead-foot Lee
In Gettysburg and Virginia.

The rebel rubs his elbows
In the White House,
Even today,

Whipping his maverick horse
Into the prairie,
Eating pie.

Rebel, turncoat, turnkey,
Gizzards of a turkey
Guts of a possum,

The road kill of reason,
The killer on the road
Mind

Squirming like a toad
Killed on the road
Riding the desert storm.