Spring Edition
Shiny pages of freshly turned out women
with honey hair and skirts the color of wildflowers
and mountain lupine. Swaying rose breasted girls
that hawk cotton, oils and strands of colored beads
from painted nails and airbrushed hands.
My hands are dark against the page,
seeded with small brown spots like ripening
bananas tucked beneath the endings of my sweater,
the color "Primrose Passion" as selected
by a clerk in complement to my hazel eyes.
Primrose - my early garden filthy in the haze
and back rooms of February, largely free of burdens
of bloom and intrusion of gloved fingers.
Later in the season, I will clip flowers and my hair
for arrangement into the latest variation.
I fold the down the corners of pages 26 and 40,
Mystic Red for lips and "Youthful Blush" for checks.
My old tom cat's cry bristles against my leg,
then he moves to sit beneath a tree
of talkative birds, tail still twitching.
Mind Shadow
Flickering shadows
that dance in back walls,
companions to midnight
and insects beating tiny
wings against windows.
Images planed by stress
and slippage in the center
of strangers, inexact reflections
that do not crave the feel
of human contact.
Shapes that lengthen and shudder
behind a flame, quivering against
the last hunger of neutral words
flung like lies at anyone who
will listen.