Four Poems by Tobi Alfier

 

Something She’s Not Saying

 

A courtyard patio lit by heatlamps.

Muffled conversations mixed with songbirds

in the air, a jazz trio in the corner.

 

Down the street buskers play the same tunes

but with more urgency. All have tip jars

but those in the courtyard will be paid anyway.

 

I much prefer cellos, she says to the man

who is trying to make a good impression.

What can he offer to that piece of conversation

 

other than try this delicious poached lobster

as he lifts a fork to her lips, an offer to share

even though he does not like sharing.

 

He’s had so many lucky breaks

but this woman, in a dress red as rage,

will not be another notch in his belt.

 

They finish their dinner as the early stars

come on slowly, night air scented

with her perfume mixed with the sea.

 

And then she’s gone with stunning grace.

She touches his cheek, touches his lips,

walks slowly backwards into the dark.

 

A Slice of Lourdes

 

Lourdes lay in a hospital bed in some city between her beloved desert and the sea. She could hear the rain but couldn’t see it, nor could she smell any smells besides the sprays used by the cleaners. It was hard to breathe until they floated away from her, swirling on the ground until the next time. The nurses were brutal and spoke a language she didn’t understand.

Lourdes was bruised and sore as a ripe peach. Again and again she drifted off to the heavy winter light of the Mojave. Late afternoon winds blowing rust like a penny fallen on trampled fields. Often she felt like a trampled field herself. Nothing to do but close her eyes and pray for the wind to end in star-sprinkled night.

Every morning she woke to stillness, an incoming tide, thoughts of driftwood floating from ships broken on angry seas just as she felt broken—a dinghy come unmoored from a rotted tether. She tries to name her room home but it isn’t. Home is where he is, her liberator—gentle kisses, words with the buoyancy of seaside grasses, dreamy dreams, no pain to wrack the body into stillness. She cannot wait to go home, inhabit her own landscape, breathe untouched air in the waking light.

King Cake

 

She realized she’d lost his ring

one quiet morning, when fog

muscled in from the sea.

When outside sounds were muffled

and even the sounds of her

riffling through papers and memories

were near to silent, like ghost-tiptoes

on wooden floors.

 

Was it a vital possession,

well yes it was. She’d twist it like

a worrystone on a palm lined with questions,

like a magic eight-ball, like cards

by the tarot reader in her tiny turquoise

house in front of the rental car agency

where people pawned their rides

for ones in shadow.

 

Did she have it to ward off the ladies

in front of the Korean market,

the ones who passed out bible verses

and hand sanitizer for cleanliness of soul,

what an odd combination—she couldn’t remember.

Did she have it at the Goodwill

where she nabbed a dress dropped off

by a woman in a Tesla,

 

cold cotton against her warm cheek.

But that ring, with the tiny diamond

and the giant promise she’s never broken

and neither has he, did she feel it brush

against her with that dress, perfectly functional,

ridiculously non-worn, and somewhat spiteful

in the tossing, did she feel the ring

she couldn’t say. Under oath she couldn’t say.

 

Like the lucky slice of King cake

the ring turned itself up

and even that was a mystery.

Sorrowful cello music was playing

and there it was. The cello turned graceful,

she stood like stone, time moving backwards

and forwards and backwards again,

her relieved laughter gambling with tears.

At the Country House One Sunday in Summer

 

Pears and honey

des poires et de miel

            sweetness that transcends

a language meant to know in the bones

as I know in my bones –

 

Words, words, qu’est-ce qu’on dit

the words to explain exquisite completeness

 

When is a glance not a glance, but

a living history, a hand to the cheek,

viens ici, the crust of a bread

cracks the family tree.  Salt.

No salt.  I can afford to keep you

            or I can’t.

 

Let’s have some sugar let me taste

from your lips the things we do not say.

 

I have a green dress.

You see my legs through the silk.

They are not frightened they are

            one, two, strong and standing

in front of you a dare, not an

acquiescence.

 

Write me a letter en français, peut-etre

en anglais it does not matter.  I want

to feel each stroke of the pen

            as if a caress.

 

Des poires et de miel behind glass.

An antique table and Mozart in the courtyard –

a window so high we don’t know

if it’s someone playing or

            an old fashioned phonograph.

Gentle the pins from my hair, your large hand finds

the back of my neck, a sweet kiss,

            another crust of bread,

Let’s stir the coffee and grow old.

At the Country House was previously published in Spoon River Poetry Review in 2009.

Tobi Alfier is published nationally and internationally. Credits include War, Literature and the Arts, The American Journal of Poetry, KGB Bar Lit Mag, Washington Square Review, Cholla Needles, James Dickey Review, Gargoyle, Permafrost, Arkansas Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others.  She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).