On the Discovery of an Indigo Tapestry

A Persian pirate is painting in a nearby peach tree.
He glances up in a scurvy daze, unaware of the nosy nun below.
She crosses herself.
She wants to save him.
He wants to be left in peace.

Sister Sneer pats her rumpled robes and runs away
pulling a Forrest Gump and galloping to the sea.
Standing in the tide, amidst a storm of wilting sandcastles
she finds two men with mandolins.
Each man is balanced, quivering upside down on a palm, just one hand.
It is the first time this Sista has seen a grand sand hand stand band …
but it won’t be the last.
As the lady of the Lord collapses under an umbrella, the men return to their feet.
They nod and turn away, two strangers strangely estranged.
The green one hands his instrument to a child and disappears amid the photo-snapping tourists.
Chester, the child, will choose to use this new contraption as a shovel.
With it he digs a hovel, sealing the cracks with silver scooped from a scallop.
Soon his mother marches over
grabbing his arm and dragging him to his proper place on her lap.
As night draws near, a tortoise from Tanzania turns toward the tower.
The hovel will be his home.

Until an astringent artist crushes it with his easel and laughs in the setting sun.