It’s the cabbage
reminding you of grass
and rolling down hills
and looking up at the teetering sky,
fire and smoke and coughing up dirt,
tasting a mouth full of dirt with the teetering sky
looming above your inertia’d head
rolling off dried leaves and
rolling up paper
and laughing and laughing and laughing and
rolling down soft hills and rolling up short skirts
and laughing and laughing and feeling
your head pound
and watching the soft ground
slip out from under you,
like rolling around and around.
And the smoke goes around and around your mouth.
You’re landing with stomach around your mouth
You’re laughing at nothing, laughing at your hands
in the cabbage, now, gloved
and tossing it like goose down.

It’s the mayonnaise
running thick in your hands
you push through the cabbage
like pushing through flesh.
The mayonnaise
reminding you of
thick white cream
pulling up memories of
slightly salty taste
reminding you of
heavy breath and trembling legs
and closing eyes and nervous hands
and hands that weave like mother or snake
like love, like sin, like salty taste
like salty taste that reminds you of
days inside and bed covers and smiling
and mixing it, weaving it like a sin
mixing it like sin and love and taste
mixing it hard and slow and soft
soft like grass like hills like love,
love like sin like smoke and hands,
hands that weave and touch and feel
and feel the fall, the cold, the touch
the touch, your touch, the touch
of all things beautiful, of, above all,
coleslaw.

12/13/2005

Author's Note: Spoken word.

Posted on 12/19/2005
Copyright © 2010 Stephanie Lane Sutton