Yeah, Lights

       appeared in Poetry Ink.

This woman who is 93, she swears

That she was young once.  Silly as she seems,

She now claims she has been your age and danced

Under a fairy moon, whatever that is,

Some same-sex astronomical effect

Of medication, Alzheimer’s, and pain,

Perhaps.  She says she has the photographs

To back it up, but boxed away; she’s left

Them all to you because you’ll understand--

She told me just this morning.  Being young,

You know what colored lights can do and dresses

That crinkle when they’re touched by the right hands.

That’s what she said.  Talk about touched.  She said

She wishes fairy lights for you.  Yeah, right.

The Marvells of Fruita

On recommendation I have come

To Fruita, hoping there to find

A vegetable life and sweet.

If pears run bareback in the street,

If clad in lucency of rind,

The watermelons strike me dumb,

I can eschew the vice of meat.

I can do seeds.  I’ll leave behind

A life of leg for love of plum.

Instead of one, I’ll love by tree.

Orchards of lovers, each the same

(Allowing for the minor spot

And bruise), will fail; who loves me not,

Need never even bear a name.

A blossom and a bud will be

Two names for each: I’ll love the lot,

Keep them from freezing by my flame,

Pick an extended family,

And build an altar on the hill

That lifts above the Fruita plain.

I’ll bury pits, one to a hole,

And watch the botanizing soul

Of each I loved burst forth again,

Multiplied.  I shall taste my fill,

Haremed upon my grassy knoll,

Summoned by humankind in vain,

Of apples of untainted will.

People, Get Ready

This morning I can taste the air.

It tastes like fall and resin. Spring
Is gooier. No need to share
This news with birds, who already sing
Insistently. The seed is swell,
They say. Bring more. And make it fast.
They sample the air. A guy can tell.
Black Bird is coming home at last.

A Centaur In His Dragon World

This appeared in The Flea, as I was reminded this week.

The sorcerers played in their own front yard,

Cardboard and crayon cutlery, no faith

Because no doubt. The little kings who lived

Regnant beneath the evergreens, concealed

By prickly leaves and bagworms, weren’t impressed.

The eldritch practices of kids on trikes,

Gray in good time, and teens do not recall

White magic. They require faith. They pray

To gods and spirits, wholly insincere.

Elder than all, and smaller than their sight,

The little kings bowed once and turned their hands

To caterpillars, lightning bugs, and soup

Brewed from a clover damp with morning dew,

Seasoned with berries poisonous to men,

And set the spiders watching, all those eyes.