sherwin-williams

in some parts of the country, it's
a homeowner's tradition: everything in
the yard (except
the grass itself) gets painted white:
every rock, every birdbath, every
busty concrete mermaid statue,
even the lower 3.5 feet
of every tree trunk--all painted white.
**
at night, there's kind of an eerie
glow from all that white paint.
**
at night, there's
just the hint that maybe the
practice of painting everything
in the yard white is kind
of charming and weirdly nice, like
the people who do all that painting
know what the heck it is they are doing.
those yards do look kind of inviting
now don't they...
**
in fact,
**
sometimes,
sexy teenage boys escape from
their bedrooms and
naked smoke and drink
beside white rocks and
lower 3.5 feet of white tree trunks.
sometimes these sexy
naked teenage boys get smoke-drunk
and erotic-happy and
jerk off together, out there
in some unsuspecting yard,
amongst all the white
objects: then,
all done,
wander nocturnal neighborhoods
on tiptoe, on delicate hoof, among
the white rocks;
only the
dribbles give them away.

–Carl Miller Daniels (This poem – “sherwin-williams” – also appears in my book Gorilla Architecture, published by Interior Noise Press in 2011. And “sherwin-williams” first appeared in Rusty Truck, October 20, 2010.)