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SEQUINS

 

on a day regular as

Carnation milk she

wore a black lace dress

sleeveless, cut at the knee;

spidery

 

in the middle of the week

in the middle of the day

in the middle of the street

 

summer stuck to her,

handmaiden of the devil,

sun cutting the haze

like a thug

 

it was a shorts and tee shirt

vacation kind of day

that was long with the

sun at a 90 degree angle

yet there she was

all cocktail ready

like she had a moonlit date

 

made you think of purple feathers,

sequins, orange shoes for no reason,

honky tonk midnight men

smooth as suede

 

lace, licorice black

fetching for strangers

and men on the make

in cars that passed by

 

blue jean woman,

I watched the sun slant

across her smile,

figured she knew things,

shifted my backpack

and winked as she went by

 

GONE

 

it was the big suitcase without

the wheels that told me you were

gone; the note was in the

handwriting of someone I

did not know; someone

who perhaps preferred

his coffee black not café au

lait, or scotch neat not

martini dirty, who catalogued

his socks by color and did not drop

them on the bedroom floor;

who needed my air to breathe

 

no:  a person I did not know

 

there is stutter in my day

filled with awkward sentences

that empty into regret,

insanity stitched up

and uninterrupted longing;

a train with no destination

rattles

 

it’s not so much the pain

but a feeling of something

missing, raveling, left undone,

a puzzle with that piece of sky missing;

or a forgetting to turn off

the stove that lingers;

something there but not

 

it’s the shiver in the silver of a leaf

the ripple up the spine of a forest

the stillness in the bustling crowd

there is a haunting

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