Dorothy Friedman August | The Absence of Green

The Absence of Green

In the Land of Green, leprechauns
are Scotch-taped to the weather.
All the poems are green.

Rabbis wear chartreuse yarmulkes.
Queens walk about in green slippers.
Wicked witches jostle for limes.

Florists deliver Brussels sprouts.
Alligators snag the spruce.
Theaters show The Green Slime.
Prostitutes strut by in bordellos wearing
green parrots on their shoulders.

Back on earth we continue to search
for olive-eyed lovers in the leafy bushes.
Instead of searching for romaine and dill
we tuck the green dragons into their bays
while drilling in our green berets.

Custody of green goes
                  to a man dribbling mescaline.

Eventually we no longer remember green.
And whine at the first bloom of spinach.


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Dorothy Friedman August is a widely published award-winning poet. Books include The Liberty Years and Family Album. Forthcoming are The L-Shaped Room and Drinking Alaska.  Other publication credits include the The Partisan Review, The California Quarterly, Many Mountains Moving, Recluse, Hanging Loose, Ikon, Like Light, and Sensitive Skin. Colette Inez has  commented on her skillful use of imagery and metaphor, and D. H. Melhem calls her “a necessary poet.”