THIS IS NOT RHODE ISLAND

"It is absurd to think that providence is quiet."
Mary scours the frost from a folding chair,
gathers her legs, sprays her skirt over knees.

Winter streets with their burnished breath,
sloppy shoulders, the mulberry moon, lodged
in the front yard sycamore, is sick

on its own slumber. New snow, fissured on the holly,
drowses, dines on her attention. She mangles
the poor pavement of it with a stone.

"This is not Rhode Island. This is not New York.
This is a place where front doors aren't hinged,
and winter is let to fester in its own filth."

She unsheathes her legs, flings her hat
in a snarled sphere against the brick of her house.
"I will set this town ablaze."

The traffic light, three moons on the snow,
shifts, and she pulls at the holly
calmly.

Previously published in Avatar Review

THE MORNING AFTER

I still remember how you smelt
the morning we pulled into the Ramada lot
to speak of wood nymphs, stone towers.
Remember how I flipped backward in my seat
and looked at you through eight dollar sunglasses,
your fingers strumming pensively on the dashboard.
I looked young then,
in a shirt bluer than your eyes, than the Gulf.
The black tee you donned each time
you were down, was creased against your skin.
I recalled how you felt under that shirt
as you peered at the mockingbird
hunting insects in April grass.  Its newspaper
wings reminded me of something
I wrote once about virginity
gone sour. I touched my thigh
and looked at you. You didn't look back.

That's how I remember you,
you know.  Hands on the wheel.
Looking away.

Previously published in Dithyramb