Artist and Mermaid on the Beach
He casts from the riverbank,
brow furrowed, sensual lips drawn
taut against the possibility of a bite.
It is his lunch hour. He is hungry.
Later, there will be a handful of crackers,
but, oh, his mouth waters for something more.
She watches from the dock, pale arms
already sunburned in the noonday heat,
admiring how expertly he reels in a catch.
She has escaped the secretarial pool, wandered
down the rabbit hole of solitude, except
she likes the way he looks in jeans.
His line is free, while she, hopelessly tangled,
considers how to lure him to her side,
how to offer bait too delicious to resist,
He is expected in the tattoo parlor by one,
his ink in thrall to patrons with less
imagination, no insight, and more money.
or perhaps issue a siren call to echo
the flash of scales, the swallowed
hook, the promise of the fleshy feast
A breeze lifts her blouse, the curve
of a breast inviting, a waist small
enough for his hands to encircle.
they might clean and share
when the day’s spell is done.
Graveside
In that glimmer time
between dusk and dark
when the light lies quiet
upon the land, two deer
stroll from the trees
to graze the cemetery,
one with the departed
souls that rise in the mist,
shifting, voiceless, content
to wander from rock to rocky
headstone, the names
as faceless as the souls
buried there. While I, watcher,
from a distant grove, gaze ever
inward toward my own fading day.
The doe lifts ears to catch the sound
of yesterday, those faint, final gasps
of a world slipping into yesterday.
At the Yellow Cab Tavern
The sun slants low across the threshold
of the old garage repurposed to welcome
our separate bodies, equal hearts, the walls
redolent with whiskey drinks, beer breath,
and pizza slices big enough to share…
the air sizzles with word pollen, poems
lifting to the turbulent snap of fingers,
the measured calls of amen and right
on the stage that is an altar for the melancholy
and the brave, the lost and the found,
the abused and the used, once empty, full
now, sated by honoring the work that flows
like motor oil, greasing every soul just
enough to piston into iambic heaven.
Inside the Labyrinth
Step into the circle with intention.
Open hands, ears, mind, heart.
Count the steps to the first turning.
Do you know what the wind
calls? What the cicada hums?
Turn, and turn again, an unbalanced
rounding from one point to the next.
What if you step too fast and lose the
thread? A raven scolds, a trifold caw
of regret. Segue to the breakfast table…
you hold of mug of sadness, raise eyebrows,
adjust the volume of complaints to low. I
fold a napkin into a roadmap, read
the tea leaves in my cup. That
was yesterday. This morning
I am halfway along the winding path
listening for a secret word, a revelation
from the center of this spiral universe
that will open the way
to reconciliation.
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