Listen, Seals and Croft

This summer breeze teases
me with sneezes and seemingly releases
fleas who feast behind my knees, so please
provide reprieve or jasmine seeds at least, for Pete’s.

I am not so kind

I have said men are cruelest when you’re young
and they don’t destroy you after messing up your mold
but kiln-fire you into a life patterned with either pathetic mimicry
or obsessive rejection of their awful fingerprints.

Yes ma’am, the puppy squealed when you kicked it
and now you will never forgive yourself for it
because you cannot forgive the cruelest man
who made you squeal, which is quite rational indeed.

And one supposes, like the man, you also left the dog alive
to wonder if it would be kicked again
and to feel confused when that impact was missing.

Not finished

Baby, I have accepted that good timing
was the miracle that brought us this strange religion.
The faith seemed less blind that night –
we saw no evidence against us –
and you thought I was a poet like your first love,
and I thought your sophistication was exquisite
paired with your unique brand of naïveté,
and our words were geneses and revelations
dancing meaningfully and perpetually around us.
That night the air was charged with a feeling of now
like standing in line for a river baptism.