Some New Work

From the Porch


Work-weary, I settle into wooden rocker
Maples flutter, yellow summer
wind.
Retired couple strolls by softly
talking.
Crickets audible over car noise.
Mailman in blue shorts drops
another book.
Trash cans wait patiently.
A rift of jet smoke splits the sky,
buzzing louder than the neighbor’s mower.
Mike, my friend’s boy, is over there.
He writes the countryside in Iraq is lovely,
but soldiers leave trash by the side
of the road...
perfect place to hide a bomb.
She comes by and helps me garden,
The hyacinths we planted are white
and blue.
The gladiolas bloomed this week,
blood red.

Flight

When the blue Dodge arrived,
all six feet three inches of
you wound your tattooed arm
around my slight woman’s waste
sweeping me up,
a foot from the blacktop
into an effortless kiss.
One shoe fell to the ground