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