Category: poems

The streets that night smelled like oyster shells, like nights on the beach and your sea-drenched hair.

I had worn my best jeans, boots, and because you wanted swagger,

my leather jacket, and your favorite cologne,

the one you said reminded you of bourbon and stories with a bad ending.

You had gone femme with a red sequin dress, black heeled shoes that made you taller than me,

and a scent that whispered of secrets in bed.

We laughed at this because baby, we knew

that despite what it seemed, you were butch as stone, but the girls would go for me.

I would give them a dance, a nod and a smile, and head right back to you

and the taste of salt in your kiss.

ground hardened by frost underfoot

the bluff above the sea

waves in hushed ebb and flow

currents circling above the ocean floor

gathered expectations, accumulated desires, stray dreams

drop into the vast rhythmic pulse

like stones they sink, like debris

that weighed heart and mind

eventually ripples fade

breath matching water’s motion

with empty hands and lightened step depart

able to see the oat grass sway unfrozen now

winter and I walk together quietly

footsteps muffled by beneficent snow

each at home in solitude

thus able to share a common road

other seasons seem raucous gauds

with foliaged extravagance, endless cerulean skies,

impossible newly-sprouted beginnings

this brief companion makes no such demands

does not even ask my presence

in such calm equanimity I find it easier to breathe

and I am grateful

I once took a dollar bill and a quarter from my mother’s purse

not to spend but to contemplate

why did this slightly crumpled printed thing and a shiny piece of metal

mean anything at all

I rubbed them both in turn between my fingers, fascinated by their texture

unable to determine if the bill were paper, fabric, or something in between

liking the ridges on the edge of the coin

( I can identify this one when I can no longer see, I thought)

I carefully put them back, still mystified as to their value

many years later I remain so, the best explanation being

they’re part of our collective fairy tale, childish playthings

we’ll abandon when we grow up

angular bones and plain flesh

hatched by scars hard won through time

considered answers to genuine questions

though replies appear wild cards

they’re never drawn from an unknown hand

sometimes they address the silent plea

one unvoiced that speaks so loudly

it cannot be ignored except to be unkind

thus the responses that seem nonsensical

no matter, tuck them down into some side pocket

find them one day when they are needed