When the elevator stops between floors,
the woman in the grey suit,
with pinching red heels
and hair lacquered shut,
dreams the same dream
as the dough-faced messenger boy,
sweat already beading his upper lip,
manila envelope turning to oatmeal in his nervous fingers.
Together they fly about the tiny cage,
a mismatched pair of parakeets
awaiting the sweet old lady in the tea-stained apron
to pull off the cloth and call forth the day,
the way a magician pulls one rabbit after another
out of the same impossibly small hat,
or rejoins the severed halves of a woman
making her whole again.
NEAR WINTER SOLSTICE*
for Chard deNiord
*First Appeared in White Pelican Review
A man stands in his yard facing
the gradient of pine
that eventuates to deep woods.
A quiet night as always
in this far from city-lights hamlet.
Cold, but not unpleasant.
The ice in the glass he's holding
rasps, sighs.
He tilts back a long swallow.
The sky has the deep sheen
of crafted mahogany, the stars
are a multitude of fine crystal bells
he can almost hear
summoning him.
Inside the house
there will be cake,
trick candles, singing.
There will be flowing wine,
companionable words.
Soon he will join his party,
but for now he’s thinking
about the wind,
how its voice
through the tall dry-grass
on this clearest of eves,
sounds so much like rain, so much
like want.
EASY AS PIE
I don’t know how many hungers there are… Kim Addonizio’s “The Numbers”
You see I’m finding it hard to concentrate because
all day long I’ve been thinking about this poem about
unfinished conversations, unanswered prayers, a woman fed up with
how people die so horribly and live such lonely lives.
But in the middle of it there’s this image—
pies spinning in the glass refrigerator case of a restaurant
long after it’s closed—that I just can’t get out of my mind.
Growing up in the diner heaven of New York City I saw a plethora
of spinning refrigerator cases and they were always showrooms
for blueberry, rhubarb and apple pies, foot-high strawberry shortcake,
Devil’s Tower chocolate, at least three varieties of cheesecake,
golden peaked Lemon Meringue, thick clouds of Boston Cream,
Éclairs chubby as newborns, ruby and emerald cubed Jellos.
So many wonderful choices—a jewel case of desire.
Shouldn’t love be like that, where the only trouble—
the only one—is which sweet thing to pick?
No matter whether you’re the type who savors or the type who gobbles,
it all gets devoured and you’re left with I-can’t-believe-I-ate-the-whole-thing guilt,
heartburn, which pass, but the craving, that sweet tooth, never goes away.
Not to mention the nagging reminders, those love handles,
those extra dollops of cream on your hips, baby let me tell you, those are for life.
and still miss the
insomniac notes of a lone
saxophone climbing
skyscaper walls at 4AM.
Flying between coasts,
Washington State and
New Hampshire, is my
major occupation. But
when there's time, I am a
freelance editor, lead
writing workshops,
conduct Concrete Wolf
chapbook contests, and
now my newest venture,
Night Rain poetry
submission service. Three
of my four black and
white cats, Arthur,
Annablelle, Leo, and
Louise, are named for
literary figures.