Tipton Poetry Journal – Spring 2021
See That My Resting Place Be Kept Green
Briggs Helton There are only three trees in Sherwood Forest. The merry men and I shoot suction-cup arrows at an invisible Sherriff or Prince. Our youthful band of gallant rebel outlaws dies often: convulsing dramatically, our eyes crossed. When we die, we are dead as long as we want to be. Someone shouts: You’re dead! I yell back: No, I’m not! He responds: Yes, you are! The truth is impossible to tell. Our names are constantly changing. Someone does a cartwheel, turns, and wanders home. I press my dead cheek into the ground, dead tongue lolled out on the lawn, tasting the bitter ryegrass.
Briggs Helton lives in southern Georgia where he works as a law clerk. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Colorado Review, Pif Magazine, Clade Song, and elsewhere.
25
