On the Seawalla community gallery of new writing, art and commentary hosted by Ron Slate

Exclusion

 

It’s a relief to drift past lovely things that exclude me.

It would take a machete to open hedges of flaming xora,

a bolt cutter to reach jasmine, blindness to miss red flags,

though the ocean looks open, smoky blue, and gorgeous;

and vanity to intrude on neighbors, who stand face to face

near the door of our building, blessedly unaware of me,

one speaking, the other stricken with sympathy.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

In the Park

 

Because you see the laurel grove, you notice shadow filling space under branches

   so the grove becomes your brief oasis.

 

Because you look beyond laurels, you see other trees dropping flowers

   from branches still wreathed in pink.

Blossoms on the grass in windrows tell you what the wind does.

 

Thin as a whip, someone is sitting cross-legged staring like murder

   into a hand-held mirror,

With pointed tweezers she digs at her eyebrows.

Like a machine she plucks, wincing at the sting, as you have done.

Though you remember prophetic Whitman saying of creation, “All this I swallow,

   it tastes good,” you tremble with pity and do not swallow.

 

Someone is sleeping upright with cloth draped like a prayer shawl over his head.

Between damped-down edges a profile trace appears.

Though his jeans are so heavy with dirt they look like metal hammered to his legs, his leg

   stirs.

Because you hear laurels speaking beyond speech, you hear the solitary sleeper,

   “God, I told you, I told you … believe me, God, I told you.”

 

You cannot enfold any of them.

 

Oh, shadow without substance.

The tree trunks are moist on one side in a wavering line the sun does not yet reach.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Union Street

 

The calm fall night when blazing leaves were invisible

and the curtain of the living room window

blurred the gold dome of the capital building

recognizable though beautifully clouded;

and three windows of the house on Centre Street

also came through but these in pale blue;

and I thought everything is in its place—

hushed and muted, even the street.

There was enough light in the room to see

the carpet edge and the arm of your chair;

I did not have to do anything but rest.

The door to your bedroom was open,

and your nightlight showed a familiar path

I might have taken to watch you dreaming.