Courtyard
Heady with lust within the scent
of sweet olive, dusk
descends chasing sunlight
across weathered bricks into
intimate corners where the green faerie
and fingers intermingle across
a wrought iron table top.
A thin sheen of sweat glistens
above her upper lip,
a hint of saltiness that melts
on his tongue.
**
Blown Away
In the time before the wind she
couldn’t imagine a life without him.
Long languid days drifted together,
shared conversations and whispered
secrets, dreams imagined and fulfilled.
Then the wind blew through, expectations
scattered and complacency tumbled.
Havoc rolled in on the hot breath of
August.
**
Chimera (A Wild and Unrealistic Dream or Notion)
All I want on a Sunday morning is to
luxuriate in my laziness. I want to watch
old movies with the volume turned up loud,
the newspaper crackling as I shift my supine
body on the couch, the words of duplicitous
politicians and photos of narcissistic socialites
mashed under my ass.
I want to gaze out my window where heat
rises on the street like steam from a gumbo
pot while I lie, cool as a nectar cream snowball,
in my Maggie The Cat slip, painting my toenails
a color called Bad Influence.
I would sip Southern Wedding Cake coffee
from the chipped china cup I knocked off
the bedside table in a moment of
passion and savor a fresh chocolate croissant,
tender flakiness that melts on the tongue like
vampires melt in the sunlight.
As the sun climbs the sky, I’d meander into the afternoon
with the expectation of an early summer storm when
we would go upstairs and slip between our cool, white
sheets and not be heard from again until
Monday morning.
**
After The Night
Let’s step down this street right now, washed
bright as our shining faces in the early pre-dawn light.
We’ll welcome the cool air of March
on our skin and breathe in the scent of freshly
baking pistolettes as we meander over cobblestones
worn smooth over time by thousands of footsteps.
We’ll watch the pigeons pecking for errant crumbs in
the banquette cracks suddenly startled by the passing
of a lone musician, coronet in one hand and fried
chicken leg in the other, home-bound in his wrinkled
white shirt, the echoes of last night’s melodies swirling
around his receding image.
Rodrigue blues and Hunter reds will pleasure our eyes
and a heavy spring dew will drip, drip, drip from the
galleries, sparkling like fading moon dust on the fragrant
buds of the tea olives. We’ll step into that coffee shop where
steaming mugs of French roast wait for us as the sun rises
over cloudy slate roofs making them shine like a brand new life.
