Discounted Poetry

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

I am gravity. I can't be bothered Every time a comet Blasts into my surface, Finds itself In sudden orbit, Doomed to end in fire In my atmosphere. I once wore guilt. That's far too heavy. I am only breathing, Being, Bending space and time By mass and energy, Attracting everything to me. Do people throw up rocks And curse? Do they expect apologies From the burning sun? - 6/9/26

You can smell The pebbles Hot beneath the lonely sun. The cathedral Proud and pointing up, Converted gold untold To mortar, stones, Artistic glory, Awing and reminding vulgar villagers Of divinity intruding on finite reality, Eternity. I want to round the corner On the gravel boulevard And find you standing Like a sacred church Beneath the open sky. - 6/8/26

I am bent. I'm watching sweatstreams Drop to darken dirt below in blotches. I am spent, And yet a never-ending waterfall. You are the puzzle I'm afraid I haven't gotten Time enough to solve. I see you take it black These days, Abandoning your snowy sugar sands. Your daring lipstick Is a lethal thrust Or bloodied shield for sheltering. Exhausted, I am dreaming of starfish, Blueberries ordinarily available, Soft patches of silver, aquamarine, And mother of pearl, Your slightly wicked smile Holding all the sprawling city, Maybe every inch of the world, Your uncovered shoulders on my pillow, Underwater eyes. My every thirst would quench And all my questions put to rest If not for your ambivalent attention. - 6/5/26

You landed Lifted, A lunar rocket in reverse. Venice is a world away. - 6/4/26