POEMS

 

A Ritual’s End

After Linda Gregg

 

Is this where the ache began

under grandmother’s table?

I watched men’s gray slacks

and women’s nylon legs

through the lace cloth.

Stuck indoors a trapped bird I wanted

cold air. I wanted winter in my face.

Wood benches in windowless churches

did not comfort me. Later my winged body hardened

to steel. Fortified, I no longer felt daggers for my sins—

when I broke rules & cracked glass,

when I answered counterfeiter’s midnight calls,

tasted his mint breath and bathed

in his smooth olive skin.

Now, rusted a bit my body stiffens.

I no longer can glide the slow crawl—

no arching on a park bench

or on the hood of a black 49 Buick.

Let the scent of cut roses leave this place.

Let the open caskets stay closed.

Let them hide powdered faces iced to touch.

Leave the slow motion voices.

Leave the polished shoes

that scrape against wood floor.

Let the maze I looked through that blurred

this world and the next lift

the room’s cold chill.

Let winter come.

Breathe the open sky.

Shed the disjointed stain.

Shed the tight clutch.

I will never give up my lace and silk.

Let hail. Let snow.

 

Published in Hole In The Head Review

A MONDAY SWIM IN 2020 WITH THE TV ON

 

Outside, the dove strikes seeds against the ground to split.

            An adolescent mocking bird craters 

            forward then back. It balances on the fence.

 

I dive into blue that appears a sky to the bees.

            They crash head first, legs curled inward. 

            Sheen-glossed wings pump against the wet blue—

           

celestial freedom liquidizes

            like those who hunger for a  new country —

            those locked in cages, heads against the floor, 

           

covered by foil blankets. They wait

            for a lost mother, a brother, a father. 

            I swim back and forth. Water fills my ears.

                       

Back inside, the TV blasts the next numbed cycle—

            outrage lost. During this plague 

            somewhere a small voice drowns.

Published in Hole In The Head Review

AUGUST HEAT

 

Last night, in bed shirtless I pulled    

covers over him. It used to be

we’d lay bare. The late night breeze

across our bodies goose-bummed

to a smoothed chill.

Cars on Santa Canyon Road swish,

swish then a lull,                                

swish, lull—an interlude

plays like surf at the water’s edge.

He kicks the cover to our ankles,

He meanders my crooked spine

then moves to my hip bones —

 

skin to skin our cells sliver

away time & its sharp silver filings.

 

Published in Hole In The Head Review                                                       

NO RESERVATIONS

 

This marriage a backyard jungle from the start—

no reservations at Panda China,

no flowers at the door.

Like the bougainvillea that spills over the fence

 

our brilliant colors and out of control tangled vines

menaced new paths.

We dug in to save the feral cat.

Our sego palm fronds stretched

 

open & held a dubious dove nest

& her marbled eggs. A Christmas card arrived

from my ex Keith after twenty years silent.

When married Keith refused

 

Holland tulip bulbs his step son Paul special ordered

from Beck Garden. Paul wanted to add

color in barren backyard plots.

A jute macramé woven by Keith’s ex wife Star

 

hung over our fireplace. She braided

it years before. The giant thing still

there our entire marriage.

I did take refuge

 

in Keith’s measured odometer miles,

his thighs roughened

to his bicycle’s seat and to his exactness—

precise to the penny.

 

Like the delicate Queen Anne’s Lace, I required a shield

until on a two-lane asphalt road

in Atascadero I howled.

My voice echoed off granite.

 

Published in Hole In The Head Review