#5 feels like part of the series but #6 seems like another poem. The series so far has consisted of one-two punches. #6 is a prolix narrative that moralizes without an ironic twist.
Would cutting it back work? I tried this:
Abel Meeropol cared
so much for lives at risk, he’d rescue
seedlings from the blade that cut the fescue.
He
never thought it futile
to not be brutal.
Re-homed in coffee cans,
rows and rows of saplings wrapped the man’s
house within a writhing hedge,
living on the edge.
Some words slow mowers’ action.
Some deeds make deadly juggernauts lose traction,
and bandwagons unstable.
And so might we, so far as we are Abel.
In #5, btw, wouldn’t “Freak” have to be plural in that context?
“Fescue” is #6 is great. I had to look it up. In general in this sequence, I’ve been enjoying the surprise incursions of fancy words.
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