Pixy-coifs are no shield for their untroubled brows.
Yellow-orange, jewel-studded chariots
carry them like Mai-Tai's under floating umbrellas
in trepidation
on that expanse of time
between
breath caught,
snuggling under a parent's arm
and pressing against a lover's chest.
(Intimate Strangers, Hidden Brook Press, 2004)
No Sanctuary
Life's scattered --
cast-off as Sunday's bulletins.
Good news indeed!
Grey-faced an matted, he lies,
eyes shutting out aching
the silence of some cloying summer night.
No scratch of suit
or tug of vest can rouse him.
Long, gone --
the must of candlewicks,
the ruby velvet veil,
the burnished oak.
No sanctuary
all's hard-edged, brittle,
threadbare as his hedgehog beard.
Pews gleam
well-polished by people's Sunday best
in feeble, amber light
that strains towards those lofty crosses.
Even the flickering sign of discarded religion
no longer touches him
in his coffin of faint hope.
Cracked, dingy fingers grip
as though petrified, their last escape.
Dying hymns in sacred memory
(lessons taught him, trusted cradle to grave)
cannot save him from tomorrow.
He's turned the other cheek to welcome the silence within.
(Intimate Strangers II, Hidden Brook Press, 2006)
Pray She Never
Once I craved sweets
no worry of puckers, rolls or chubby knees clouding my dreams.
Once I was fair,
my baby-blonde locks curled at my unwrinkled brow.
Once I was dressed
in pinafores; in crinolines with lace and ribbons
trimming my every pirouette.
Once I stood proud
in patents; a matching purse crooked safely;
mirroring my mother's savvy style.
Now I, camouflaged head to toe in anonymity,
clutch at fashion on some distant, glossy page,
strain for news of our release over a scratchy station speaker
knowing the three-day visit was more than I could bear
and pray
she never grows to feel like that of me.
(Intimate Strangers II, Hidden Brook Press, 2006)
Vagrancies
Remnants of one life tossed in the ditch are gold to another. Two dozen empties in video bags three times a week; sleeves of Rothman's packs; meager groceries tallied on narrow slips. All cash. Small losses.
Imagine that pre-packaged glow casting aspirations across his threadbare recliner. Sipping, tipping ashes into leftover tinfoil, he worships silvered heros. Deadened fingers drizzle swill on carpet mange. His hollow dreams stagger back into the past.
The other's gain, ten cents a can scavenged from dense weeds beside the tar-pitched road, stokes the pension. He redeems flattened scrap for fresh cases endorsing some nascent accord.
(entry to LICHEN Arts & Letters' 101 Words [less one vowel], summer 2006)
