Ode To A Pair Tossed Into A Ditch
(after Jane Kenyon)
Walking through this posh neighborhood
to my beloved hovel
on a poorer street,
I see an empty bottle
upturned in tall grass,
slender neck pointing
to the sky. Two-foot
douglas fir leans over it,
frayed ribbons still tangled
in its branches. And I
would ask the poet,
Isn’t the possibility of love
always alive
in the grasses of spring
even when the world
abandons us? And she
would answer,
Yes.
Please, Night Sky
New moon rises over bombed-out shelters.
Don’t forget me, my little ones,
the mother rests a ghostly head
on her son’s shoulder, clasps
the daughter’s hand beneath a blanket.
Her twins, just learning to talk, are silent.
Who will console the mother the moment
she realizes they are dead, like her?
Please, night sky, be kind to this mother.
She might think her children only sleep,
might be dreaming about her.
Stars wince.
Find Me, Lighthouse
After a long and dark wait, I notice
a glittering bird, white feathered,
black limbed, incredibly this egret smiles at me.
He asks if he should bring another limoncello.
Then he turns into a river
gliding around marble tables
where café patrons sit
with hands waving in the air.
You were born to a higher
purpose than this, my egret,
you were born to dance eight to the bar,
under a sky serenaded with jazz piano
and saxophone, while over the harbor,
a red-and-white radio tower winks.
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