Flank

“Autumn is my favourite”,
I tell you, with a sniff of the air.
“But then, you call it Fall, don’t you?”

You nod slowly, your dark blonde hair bouncing
like heavy branches about your face.

“I don’t understand Fall –”
(I’m sneering)
“I mean, the leaves fall, yes, but
in Spring, they bloom, and we don’t call Spring bloom.”

You shake your head, and the branches
catch your nose with your slow swings,
heavy as your eyes, which are brimming with rain.

“I think that’s the problem with Yanks”
(my voice is nasal)
“always got to have the simplest things,
else they get confused.”

You have two blue streaks down your cheeks,
and your lips are stained with sloe,
snow-cold shivers passing through you
with exhaustion.

“Do you call winter ‘The Big Cold’ over there?”
(I’m going too far)
“I bet you do. Gee mom, The Big Cold sure is cold!”

You stub the orange from a leaf with your toe
until it’s all mud, and rot, and not
what it once was.

“And Christmas, what’s that, Jesus Day?”
You sigh, and pick a branch from the ground,

I presume to tap in weighted frustration
at your own American-ness. Your difference
is too much for me to bear, and I am bowed,
like a sapling, with frost, and ice, and my helplessness
has cast me Snow Queen in this scenario.

I watch as you flex your fingers around the bark,
coughing, and pursing your lips, as though the taste
of something bitter lingers about your mouth.

Then all is black, and searing, like a cow
on a summer grill, criss-crossed about the cheek
with lacerations. There is red flying in wobbling pebbles
through the air and into the incinerator. It is my own.

I think the last thing I heard
was “yee-hah”.