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Coping
Yesterday, I pressed it all into a lopsided ball
and sent it flying through the window
of my second story apartment,
shattering the glass
and making delicate sounds
like wind chimes as the pieces
fell to the unyielding concrete.
I feel much better now:
weightless and unscathed;
like a tiny bubble floating above
the hot smog and carbon monoxide
of dumptruck days.
Idolatry
You were complete perfection that day,
with the light golden stubble that protruded
from your chin like the skin on a prickly pear,
and your hair, greasy and tousled, reminding me
of the pit of a freshly eaten mango.
You wore a pair of battered blue cargo shorts, and
a soiled white tee shirt.
Your sculpted arm was decorated with a burgundy
scab above the left elbow and to top it off, you had
a wonderfully bloated sore festering on your upper lip--
To be that damned lucky sore!
A Memento of Our Late Summer
It will be the shortest story ever told,
because it never happened.
We didn't really meet that night; I didn't shyly finger
my long waves of hair, and intermittently cast glances
between your crystalline eyes and the yellowing linoleum,
and you didn't stand opposite of me, your strong frame
leaning
forward, while puffing yourself up like a cartoon superman
and telling me of your airy aspirations.
We never became companions, existing only for each other's
sake,
nor did we share anything beautiful, like pictures of rose
and lavender sunsets--of me watching you with adoration for
eyes
and removing wind-swept strands of hair from my face,
while laughing with all of the joy of iced-tea
and watermelon summer days--
because none of that ever happened.
And someday, when I'm brown and wrinkled with age,
like an old paper bag that was used and then discarded,
I'll take my grandchildren outside to see a world that
you and I never shared, and to enjoy days that
you and I never had.
And when they grow taller, like saplings, still
blooming and radiant with new life--their bodies
making ready for the years to come,
I will hold them close to me, combing through their hair
with my weathered fingertips, and tell them stories of our
love,
and of how great it was,
and how it never happened. |
