Scotland

amanita caps
dance red drops
on verdant moss
brush dark arcs
on leather boots

toes face a sign,
old oak tacked,
algid Scotland winters
waning acrylic flakes
sporadic white 

in inlaid letters–
place your hands here 
to let the faeries take your worries away

palms in whittled wood
breath, long

let the faeries 
take 

your worries

in a house on stilts
swimming in mom’s 
velvet dress
sister and I smoked stick cigarettes, 
angels hid in tree tops

we won sunset’s bleeding citrus
over felt-tipped civilizations
pasted bedroom walls with
a strawberry-scented nightwatch  

baked sunbread in the oven
board games, babysitter wrestling
time a playdough, 
soft shoulder shake wakeup


memory’s joy
round as frog eggs
held in still pools,
river’s reprieve,
then siphoning to arterial tip
to chewed sand, 
Loch bank,

where I crunch
when my palms chill

Silver mirror on olive hills
bankside, redhead child with sugar cone
Doles pieces to ducks

She squeals to quacking chorus
teal boots plume sand
I am certain she sees faeries
while I pick 
lost hairs from shower drain

she chases hero’s journeys
and I wilt in library late hours

no wonder faerie sign 
was carved for big hands
budding calluses
of pockmarked
calendared time

I wonder how to 
playdough mend
the gap 
between her world and mine.