{"id":2414,"date":"2021-01-31T23:19:24","date_gmt":"2021-01-31T23:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/?page_id=2414"},"modified":"2021-02-01T03:36:23","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T03:36:23","slug":"a-poinsettia-by-cal-freeman","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/a-poinsettia-by-cal-freeman\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poinsettia by Cal Freeman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A Poinsettia<\/em><\/p>\n<p>is not actually poison for the dog<br \/>\nwith the bicycle wheels<br \/>\nharnessed to its back hips.<\/p>\n<p>The fractal diadems of the spruce keep<br \/>\npressing upward.<\/p>\n<p>Winter with its one glass eye says,<br \/>\n<em>Computing isn\u2019t fun,<br \/>\n<\/em><em>but it could have been.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The structure of the command<br \/>\n<\/em><em>is the command.<br \/>\n<\/em><em>A good dog is a computer<br \/>\n<\/em><em>with a soul. <\/em>The code poets keep<\/p>\n<p>mistaking form for function<br \/>\nwhile their ideograms<br \/>\nrest in the certitude of denotation.<\/p>\n<p>The purveyor of this stuff<br \/>\nthinks he carries news<br \/>\nof the future on his hip,<\/p>\n<p>but it\u2019s just the plastic casing<br \/>\nof a retractable leash.<\/p>\n<p>Winter with its one glass eye<br \/>\nsays, <em>Conjunctions are prosthetic<br \/>\n<\/em><em>joints for quadrupeds.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I\u2019m not after anything real,<br \/>\n<\/em><em>so spare me the blood harmonies<br \/>\n<\/em><em>and demotic outfits.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The tree in flurries is a live green tree.<\/p>\n<p>The sonation of the mourning<br \/>\ndove flying from the live<br \/>\ngreen tree a mechanical<br \/>\nfunction, not an expression.<\/p>\n<p>They counted to three<br \/>\nin a patrilineal progression<br \/>\nthe day before I came.<\/p>\n<p>Back there at the root<br \/>\na smiling butcher slaps fat<br \/>\nand slugs cheap Canadian whiskey.<\/p>\n<p>The weather goes on leaving<br \/>\ndigital memorials to itself\u2014<br \/>\ndense green Doppler echoes,<br \/>\nominous hook echoes\u2014<\/p>\n<p>that tell us we were passed over<br \/>\nneither for a lack of love<br \/>\nnor its surfeit.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Cal Freeman is the author of the book <em>Fight Songs<\/em>. His writing has appeared in many journals including <em>Southword, The Moth, Passages North, The Journal, Hippocampus, Southwest Review, Post Road, <\/em>and <em>The Poetry Review. <\/em>His poetry collection, <em>Poolside at the Dearborn Inn, <\/em>is forthcoming from R &amp; R Press in 2022. He currently serves as music editor of <em>The Museum of Americana<\/em> and teaches at Oakland University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Poinsettia is not actually poison for the dog with the bicycle wheels harnessed to its back hips. The fractal diadems of the spruce keep pressing upward. Winter with its one glass eye says, Computing isn\u2019t fun, but it could have been. The structure of the command is the command. A good dog is a &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/a-poinsettia-by-cal-freeman\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Poinsettia by Cal Freeman&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2310,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2414","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}