Snow Day

I can’t believe I am doing this.
I flick my fingers across the top and pick up a few wisps.

My tongue prickles.
Not numb, just prickly as if my taste buds had turned in to goosebumps.

A few more bounds and I am back to the poorly shoveled walk.

Starting up the stairs again, I wonder how much I will miss this place, these people.

I have wanted to move on and leave my memories of him here
And at the same time I am afraid that when I do part of him will be lost forever.

I’m sorry it had to end this way.

I press my tongue to the top of my mouth melting the last few crystals.

O’Hara I am Not

It is 5:18 and I am floating near the end of class.
So far Pollock has painted,
Lady Day has died,
And I have finished a can of Squirt which reminds me

Of a dusty ’66 Ford truck without seat belts
Unsuccessfully spitting sunflower seeds out the window
On the way to the lumber yard on scratchy unnatural upholstery
And I notice the rust on my hands after I slam the door.

Hardly anyone speaks up in class, yet as soon as it is over
No one can hear because all speak at the same time
The tiled floor and and molded tin ceiling
Reflecting the voices, turning them into noise
Broken sentences flying about hitting me in the head
As I try to hide, entrenched behind my laptop,
Barricading myself from the shrapnel of those statements.

The truck was sold long ago
And with it went my childhood
It was a rainy Saturday afternoon when my innocence
Drove away in the hands of a man I had met only once before
And would never see again.
I hope he treats it well, but inside I know he won’t

The classroom has now emptied and all that is left are
Flickering fluorescent lights
The hum of electronics left on, forgotten in the corner
And me
Still hiding

Wondering where the truck is now.
Maybe I could buy it back.

Nepenthes Sanguinea

And there I am caught,
Caught in your snare,
The small green flying insect
Drowning in the pitcher of a flesh eating plant.
It was so beautiful
I had to investigate,
To to discover myself in the reflection of that beautiful cup
Dripping from your jade leaves.
I was beautiful and for a moment fell in love.
Fell, falling, I have fallen into your trap and here I drown.
Looking up at your beauty and trying to remember my own
As the sunlight pours in through the toxic water that is my demise.

Flamenco

Tequila
Warm and earthy
Burns into my soul
I am lost in the moonlight
Then we dance
We dance and I don’t care

I breathe your scent
Our sweat runs together
And I can taste the salt on my lips
My body pressed up against yours
Then I am spinning,
spinning and spinning

Lights, faces, colors flash past my eyes
The room is a blur, and Oh the heat!
The world has stopped
It is I that am spinning,
Spinning and spinning
There is nothing else.

The Canonized Poet

Dead white man remembered
Visions of times gone by
Poking and prodding with fine silver picks through the
Melting, moldering mush behind his eyes
Can we see through those foggy marbles with all of our
Methods, our science, our modernism
His intertextuality, his sexuality,
His ménage à trois of passions, fallacies, and regrets?

Saffron, Silver, and Silence

"Another success," Mark grins raising his glass, "the food is delicious!"

"The rice tastes so exotic." adds Michelle.

"Would anyone like some more?" I ask with polite smile as I pass a bottle around the table again. "It's the saffron." I say connecting eyes with Michelle as if divulging some big secret. I rise from our cherry wood dining table in a robin's egg blue v-neck dress that highlights my features and makes my skin look a touch darker than the porcelain it really is.

"Saffron is so expensive." I hear Vanessa whisper to her husband as I collect the wine and head back to the kitchen to get dessert. I take a few last swigs from the bottle and hide the yellow food coloring in the back of the cupboard. I take the pumpkin custards out of the oven and before arranging them on a silver tray, I pause and take a look at my reflection in its mirrored surface.

Richard must have told a joke. I can hear his guffaw, twice as loud as the polite laughs of the others. I take a deep breath. The custards arranged with candied walnuts and thick maple syrup stand at the ready, the pièce de résistance on a silver tray, for our guests. Coffee and tea then a few more hours and the house will be silent again; we will be silent again. Richard in the den with the TV on relating more deeply to some sports commentator than he ever had with me. Me, alone, upstairs arranging things in a nursery that will never be filled, or at least that is what I have come to believe.

"These are my favorite." Richards says leaning back in his chair with his stomach protruding when I reenter the room. "I used to tell Mark there that I married 'er just to make sure I got to eat these babies for the rest of my time, didn't I Mark."

There is a clinking of spoons for a while, then a second round of coffee and a few more laughs. Soon Richard is helping Vanessa with her coat and we stand at the door and wave, his arm around my waist as we watch the cars pull out of the drive.

Moments later he is sitting in his leather arm chair in the den with that blasted machine filling him in on how the Browns were crushed and the Ravens just might make it this year. I put my hands on his shoulders and kiss his forehead, then pause waiting for a response.

All I get is silence.