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# System prepended metadata

title: Peppermint on the Lamb

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# Peppermint on the Lamb
**by Violet Treadwell Hull**

Nails too short to really leave a mark
For necromancers
In german woolen coats

But the possibility of a scratch 
Is the only promise
That keeps the drifting at bay

The textured times always win
In hand and in heart
And in this little jaw that could

Formidable tranquil and taciturn
Teeth that clatter and chomp
Find the cud

Making the sweater twist into a real sweat
And finding each fiber alive with moss
An ecosystem of the sloth’s back

The ground breathes steam
The grass holds steady in the trenches
So many worms move that they start a fire

The air is the coldest and the dirt is winter stew
The trees talk
Who done it this time?

Who told the worms it was dancing time?
Who keeps the time?
Down here

The weather decisive
But only moment to moment
Leaves the weakened weakened

And the men who keep the ground watch on
A time table of the one harp player
A lunch card for he who combs the beach

They would do anything to let the fog wet their socks
And teach the power of temperatures
Or to hear the sister steams of the compost mingling 

Self payment
And self prophecy
Eat at the same table

From the same spoon
And with twin tongue
Dabbed with the same handkerchief 

Find time for this feast
In due time you may be the soup
And each freckle the pepper

Long strands of DNA gathered
At the bottom of the bucket
While the mess hall stifles their choking on this fibrous offering

Unfettered by a splintered stirring ladle
Laden with fine wine and pine needles
Encrusted with the finest minerals that ever touched a fossil

These and more will be woven
The pressure applied
The corners of the mouth raw

The found had been filled
The ground leapt and rolled to a carpet
The sweat drooled down to spin in tandem with the ripe oils of broth

It will take on rosemary and thyme
It will bitter and sweeten
On a see saw of bud

Pluck the tree from your tooths
And find that snuffed out key 
To our best house

I worry that
Flies whisper
“No one near her could be me”

But I've found the bugs in her door frame
And I've crushed them all into
Narrow silver and electric seams in my side

These rivers roar for reckoning 
Tea and cakes
Of mist coated in sugar

I will bite you soft
You'll see
And we can reflect on the time that half my mouth ballooned

I laughed then and now because I've never been symmetrical
And elbows still move on their own
Tin lined joints 

But nothing creaks
Only crackles
A salve made of metal and juice applied by the most diligent

Maybe it even soothes
The resident crow’s foot
And the warm patch of blister that make lips seen

It will swell and I will sway 
It would be so cruel of you to show up now
Because my face is strawberries 

But maybe you can fall to tempo
When you find me hardening
In a wet newspaper paradise

Everything to nothing 
Nothing to something
And something to worse

Who pays?
Who drives?
Who keeps time?

Who finds it?
Who holds onto your left side?
While I chase your right.
