Summertime Poetry.

Coney Island


I hear your voice on the television set
Reading letters sent back home.
There are whispers on the ocean,
Speaking promises of closeness.
They caught an eel with your name
Scrawled in cursive on its back.
Come back august sky.

---

Obsession.

Smile pretty, baby,
we have to look nice.
Show me your dimples.
Look at your rosy cheeks.
There. There you go.
Stand up straight.
When are your getting your hair cut?
Can we go to Coney Island?
Or maybe that one building. please?
There's this wax museum I read about
Or a garden in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn's so pretty, baby.
Just like you.



---

Replacement.

You hold me like porcelain in your palm,
delicately skimming the surfaces with your
Webbed hands, tickling my hair,
trailing tears down my spine.
I smell the sound of silence.
You left me on a shelf and
I watched you love from afar.
I am silent and unchanging
but not so easily broken as that.
You could not take me down again.
I played your little blow-up doll.
You laced me with pearls and soft kisses and
I never once broke for you.
But you put me on a shelf and
hid me from the world.
You loved again, but how could I know?
I climbed down and saw him
sitting on your bed, holding the lion
That flew 1000 miles to say he loves you.
His mouth is taped. I fall down.
But I am not that easily broken.

----

Coffee Shop

My days are empty but for these promises.
Closeness from 1000 miles away.
These plastic covers turn blue skies brown,
but there is no sun in Brooklyn.
We'll enjoy the picayune limelight
Wrapped in the warmth of our own light.

---

Point of Contact

You stopped breathing until we touched.
The point of connection where my fingers
met your back resuscitated your lung.
I felt your rise and fall,
saw the tundras melting,
leaving dew drops in your hair.
There is no winter in Texas,
but you come from the summerless land.
When we meet, it's autumn or spring,
the point where our summer meets solstice.
My breath shakes the dew from your hair.
Your heart beats in my palm.
The orchids are blooming,
Our leaves turn yellow and red.