Poetry by Emily Tipps


Walking with Houses

Their glossy eyes walk with me
all down the street, noting
that my shadow is the deepest shade of yellow.
Turning square lace-lidded eyes on me, they
sigh, the grand ones breathing,
O! But she is so young!

I drag my shadow behind me and mutter
Oh, if I had but a pail to carry it in.
The green smelling geraniums call
warnings from their window beds.
I trust them because they are resilient plants,
poor people’s flowers.

The clambering houses tilt shingled hats to me
with ready advice lurking in stuttering doorways.

 

 


Everglade

Old woman surviving
unmoving in stewed afternoon
light, enduring the mossy heat
of night. spaceUpside-down
hours in the Florida sludge.

Red camaro maroon
that night, cast her
from the highway into
forgotten. spaceUpsidedown
mosquito bog with light—

brown and moving like molasses,
or like the earth’s daily
twisting exercise, indecipherable.

Listening to the wheelspin, upside-
down, the swish in her ears
twisting to bug song, broad-
studded gator tail making
esses in ropy water.

Completing a third
or second cycle, time is
bringing her rescue—
the face of a fisherman,
upside-down.