The Scarecrow’s Apprentice
I’m a riddle in eleven syllables. I’m a lover with seven laughs, each hoarser than the last. I’m a pun, a jokester, my kid self pulling my leg—stretching denim and time to a vanishing point on the horizon of a straw-filled plane. I’m gravity. I play favorites. On Einstein’s Cross, I’ll bend light just enough to catch your eye. If you look closely (you won’t), I can’t be what you want me to be: the coarse burlap of space starlit just enough to illuminate worn threads that need patching. It doesn’t take your living eyes to see I’m not made for such sublime hanging. Of nimbus and thorn, I am divine. Crows circle through my parts that are sky rejoicing in my beauty as fields go barren and drift under washed out clouds. Please forgive me for pretending my hands don’t have previous lives. I will forgive you for asking why I hang here, why I struggle to be less beautiful than I am. I won’t succumb to grace to make my life easier. I won’t fail my only purpose for being.