{"id":1925,"date":"2015-05-16T18:57:50","date_gmt":"2015-05-17T01:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/?page_id=1925"},"modified":"2019-04-16T14:33:04","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T21:33:04","slug":"gladiola","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/inventory\/gladiola\/","title":{"rendered":"Gladiola"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It took years. I could reach the third crotch<br \/>\nof the willow, pick off a catalpa pod<br \/>\nonce shinnied up after. Now stranger <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>in a familiar but shrunken backyard<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I sized up the limber sycamore.<br \/>\nMight I still clamber up its reaches? <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>I sniffed sweet gardenia, bruising<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>its silken petals brown with soft touches.<\/p>\n<p>But where were the sleepy plants sweaty boys<br \/>\nwith grass itch tease to make play possum,<br \/>\ntheir lobes curling up like doodlebugs<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>beside a yellow-magenta blossom?<\/p>\n<p>The new tenants must hate the burgeoning<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>stuff of imagination. They weed, prune,<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>lead staid community crusades against<br \/>\nanything that might make us swoon.<\/p>\n<p>They spread acrid toxic herbicides<br \/>\non any wild seed which takes root and sprouts,<br \/>\nlike nettles or spear grass (once tortures<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0for<br \/>\n<\/span>captive braves whose home-made breechclouts<\/p>\n<p>flapped in the breeze, baring boyish hips).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>These good burghers drain the ditches where kids<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>with bacon tied on strings coax crawdads out<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>the lips of underwater mud-clump mounds.<\/p>\n<p>Metamorphosis from tadpole to frog<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>has been reduced to glossy <i>Life<\/i> illustration,<br \/>\nthe cool, real writhing of snakes replaced<br \/>\nwith clammy joke-shop rubber stand-in.<\/p>\n<p>So storms won\u2019t sweep small boys out smelly<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>bayous, flush them up sticky in Galveston Bay,<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>these burghers put grates in front of culverts,<br \/>\npour concrete on every unkempt gully.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Yet the sycamore was my private<br \/>\nredoubt for illicit excursion,<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>when lush with concealing vegetation,<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>a site of surreptious masturbation.<\/p>\n<p>I clomb it gingerly that muggy morn<br \/>\nnot bothering if I should or not.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>Then, transgressing all their civic rules,<br \/>\nI did it swaying with my frailer barefoot<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>self whose haunts and hideways I glimpsed<br \/>\nthrough foliage below. My sperm splattered<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>onto twigs and leaves high above where<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>first I saw it. Nothing else mattered.<\/p>\n<p>I had names for all the nooks and niches<br \/>\nin that Eden, even the unsheathed bulbs<br \/>\nsprouting in cat shit beside elephant-ear<br \/>\nin beds outside my window, my ersatz vulva.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It took years. I could reach the third crotch of the willow, pick off a catalpa pod once shinnied up after. Now stranger in a familiar but shrunken backyard\u00a0 I sized up the limber sycamore. Might I still clamber up its reaches? I sniffed sweet gardenia, bruising its silken petals brown with soft touches. But &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/inventory\/gladiola\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Gladiola&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3496,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1925","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1925"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3950,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1925\/revisions\/3950"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}