Discounted Poetry

She hit me with the beach ball. I satisfied, The best laid plans I made Pool side, The sweating bowl And slick carafe. She laughed. Her glass of lemonade, I let it fall. - 6/17/26

We both are lost somewhere inside The sweaty sizzle of the Thai food In a restaurant so hot and steamy I can nearly read the menu off your forehead. I have lately realized that even iron stomachs Do at times regret Certain delicious spicy peppers. I can tell this moment It is firing throughout your thoughts, And yet I know I can't start it with you. We're friends enough I'm well aware you never see a romance through, But dancing round colliding eyes, You talk between bites of noodles and shrimp Of Doctorow and Rich. I squint and see you In the front seat Riding slow to airports, beaches, Bedsides inside countries I can barely say. I often heed these warnings Like the tiny writing Telling me I shouldn't eat  The cookie dough Still raw, But over bowls of kway teow pad thai, I know exciting nights Would end with me Enjoying rice alone, Kincaid and Richard Price and Irving Tragically unanalyzed. - 6/16/26

I cannot understand. I read instructions, Put the pegs into their proper holes. You're blind to Stacks of pancakes crying syrup. You don't hear The diner seat I'm sticking to Or smell the heaviness of frying sausages. You know What I won't steal from you. Is that the reason Your feet are pendulums below the knees, Your smile Tastes of rotten grease? - 6/15/26

My first extended stay Inside a hospital Was with my wife, Wherever she is now, I on the filthy tile In the bathroom stall And staring through the ceiling, Begging god with tears I never have She'd be on the better side Of the fifty-fifty chance The surgeon grimly told me of. We spent a Christmas there, Thanksgiving, Changing of the calendar. I've not seen her in twenty years. My second wife A couple months after our divorce Visited me on my second stay. I'd shaved my head, Remembering the lessons Of my former partner. They had stopped my heart for hours, Like she did the night we met. Recovery was perfect, Painful. I've a lengthy scar that fades with every season. I haven't seen her in a decade. I haven't stayed inside a hospital since. - 6/12/26

She perfected her disorder In ballet. She suffered, then she loved The classes, Ordered and exact, As long as she remembered. Now, her skinny frame Is shaking like a slender willow In a tempest Here inside the heated coffee house In mid-November. She is pulling her enormous creamy scarf To wrap her pretty, pale, uncovered shoulders. "I am quitting smoking," She apologizes, Hands as skittish As a Coltrane solo. I cannot ignore The echoes of anxiety Like watching children playing near the edges Of the roof too high above The city street. The ambers set above Her rolling cheeks Still glisten mellow As they float in currents, Choppy streams of rushing thought. She asks if I frequent this place And just how long I've used the app. Her beautiful brown eyes are quicky caught, Capsizing under trickling waters. "Sorry.  I'm sorry," Napkin to her eggshell face, Flat shoes the softest scurry Out the ringing door. - 6/11/26

It won't be long, She said again. I've felt a fever Rise, subside. It never seems So strong Now. Dry mouth Bleary eyes, I search the brutal mists Of dust Engulfing the horizon, The bush Which burns And burns, Though mute For years. - 6/10/26