"Don't Fear the Rainbow" and "A Picnic Full of Secrets"

Don’t Fear the Rainbow

An explosion followed by snow
in deepest July
could be an omen
or just a scheme
for selling more rain hats
to rain-fearing citizens,
anyone who’d rather
have electric snow
pumped across the window,
or who brings a tanning booth
to a luau; thunder’s not
just for rain; it could hail
up ghosts rapping at the window
even in the fullness of day,
when you know a haunting is serious;
for who comes out in bad weather
unless there’s a rainbow
to see, or a pot of gold
and an invite to plunder

A Picnic Full of Secrets

Then there was the day
everything got stuffed up the stovepipe—
best place to hide your French fries and beer
when grandma comes calling—
in a minute every stash
we could think of
got covered in ash, a good
clean substance if you don’t get it wet;
all the evidence of bigfoot​
and UFO landings hacked out of the FBI files;
all the bootlegged kung fu westerns,
bomb making plans, and recipes
for dandelion wine, potato salad, and mahogany
cake—an old family secret,
because you can’t be too careful at the picnic;
the wasps swarmed in like cops
waving stingers like pistols
and buzzing for dominion;
we swatted them with wiffle bats,
but they just kept coming
for the ice cream and the wine;
when their chief leaned his cigar
up the chimney, searching for the keg,
Mom’s firecrackers took light
with a rattle of gunfire;
and just like that the evidence burned,
no harm done, no fault, no foul,
and we’re better off now without
all that junk and distraction