~ Ð' Lady in ð' Linden-Leaf Dress ~ (written August 7þ, 2025, in Machias, ME)

~ Advisement: ðis poem is best read wið ð' voice of Tom Waits (mentally, or your own impression, or, I will personally send you an audio-clip of myself doing a Tom Waits impression), while sitting outside drinking coffee & smoking cigarettes ~

~ Ð' Lady in ð' Linden-Leaf Dress ~

Ð' Lady in ð' Linden-Leaf Dress walked along an arid cow-field paþ. A fat grasshopper clapped across ð' wide, dusty track. Dried bricks of scat sat crusting 'neaþ ð' Sun, & a hawk wheeled in broad, lazy swaðes across ð' sky.

A fluffy dandelion seed fluttered daint'ly by; twirled itself straight into Augusta Hawþorne's eye. She gasped, muttering an acrid oaþ of aggravation as her eyelid puckered w' teary salivation.

Neverð'less, she caught her breaþ, pulled it deep, plunged it down & held it in her lungs, ðen she blew it out w' a kiss & smiled.

No sudden, pretty þing is gonna turn her darling day around.