Relevance
With a shake of your head
and lips pursed into a defiant smile
you affirm personal history
be left alone
offering
nothing more
than aptly reminders
It's all about
fluff
Meanwhile
I let the blueness of your eyes
open me to the edge of day
as I recall instead
another of your rippled
declarations
To write poetry down my back
haiku across my breast
***
Lures
Or in the white, white, quivering
instability of love
we shake a world to order ~ Phyllis Webb
A moment. A moment is all I dare to ask for.
I stake my claim in the sand with my chair, book in hand,
set to unfold myself. If only the child nearby would
stop yelling a muffled, M-u-m-m-a, from under his overturned
rubber raft- or at least his brother would stop
jumping on it.
*
There are two of them,
any more and they would not be noticed.
The ducks' sway and dip is intrinsic to the lake,
their peaceful arc of water edged by a mortar wall
pushing beyond the land.
The sun is setting.
*
That Saturday morning
he had knocked on doors, connective strangers
in a townhouse complex.
Could someone knot his tie, his daughter
was getting married.
One dad helped me into the car at home
the other offered his hand when I arrived at the church
his tie looking just so.
Five months after his first grandson was born
I was planning his funeral. His textured brown suit and tie,
a dark contrast to the satin-whiteness of the casket lining,
looked all too familiar.
*
They were a pair. White swans, very white, eyes dark and
endless. They symbolized mystery. Until one night
when youths captured and spray-painted one of them
black.
Being alone does little to replace
the mystique of togetherness
*
Had anyone ever pinned her crayon drawings on a fridge?
I wondered. Now the girl's being placed in Transition House.
A teen-ager still, without a clue who the father is- Too many to try.
With a mom more handicapped that she, a violent, automated
world she cannot cope with, her abuse is considered
consequential. The only thing left is to take the baby.
Family. Is there ever a choice?
*
Spring is over, paled dandelion seeds have blown past,
taking root where they may.
It could easily have been this morning, I wondered, or another
morning he's sat with his lover, lost in her eyes,
fresh blueberries and strawberries adorning their plates.
A leisurely breakfast amid the sun's embrace,
on her Carolinian veranda.
*
It's better to have loved... is not working for me.
Why, if only to be given so fiercely, and then taken away.
*
The water swirls, sunlit reflections flicker
like lures across the surface.
The ducks float on.
Tufts of wind stir the willows.
Daylight fades to blue.
I fold my chair, turn away from the lake,
vaguely remembering not to look back.
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