Winged Victory

It was with growing irritation that he watched her sashay in front of the mirror. Her minnow hands weren't sleepy like his and her head cocked left then right. But her eyes were never once on her reflection, they kept flicking off and catching the birds darting in the corners. He tried to catch them and calm her but when he turned they were always gone. His breath caught in his throat when he imagined her dancing alone with the birds. Her skirts fluttered and his vexation flew with feathers.

Oh hey revival

Silly deceptions with frog eye salad and egg in a nest were simple but when she moved on to ginger lightly muddled with whiskey he knew she was in over her head. And now he could no longer look at her with the same whimsy that had once overtaken him when she blinked with brass spyglasses in riverbed hands.

Interest

upstairs someone was pounding veal but they lay on their backs and ate jelly sandwiches and knew that somewhere people were talking about them. but there were no burning ears here, just crocodile tears and mirrored sunglasses. and they journeyed to the ocean and walked past sea glass and sand dollars, preferring washed up tires and old fire pits. and when the sun went down they went searching for Angelyne, holding cigarettes and orange segments in the same hand and shrieking innuendos over music no one else would know until next week. and with her gold hair off setting all the shades of black they'd drive to the eternally lit supermarket and sit in shopping carts and on children's rides and discuss french philosophy and the smell of cinnamon. finally he'd notice that her bright lipstick was leaving imprints on her knuckles as her fingers crept into her mouth and he'd grab that shaded hand and pull her home for cups of bad coffee until the maids came in the morning.

A Sestina for Jeff and Suzanne

You are already feeling woozy from the wine
But the waiter assures you this is one is better than chocolate,
Than sex, than tea after a day in the snow.
The room is filled with people waving spoons,
Fingers, anything for attention in this theater.
You observe everything as if for a class.

You vaguely recall having a class
With the woman now screaming for wine.
She had been social while you haunted the theater
Looking for a way out, drowning grief in chocolate.
Now her's is a world of silver spoons
And you're floundering out in the snow.

Among them you feel like a fox in the snow,
Your red fur the sign of a different class.
Unlike all of them, you weren't spoon
Fed money, raised on wine.
But for you it was a treat to have chocolate,
And the most beautiful thing was the theater.

They jabber nonsensically about that same theater,
About some show that they braved the snow
For. About the mud and chocolate
They left in their first class
Box. Someone spills a glass of wine
On the coat of the waiter as he picks up spoons.

Now the sound of clinking spoons
On glasses fills their circus theater.
"Speech!" They call, their voices thick from wine,
All are too drunk to remember the snow
That will hinder their trips home. Upper class
Means getting a cab is as smooth as good chocolate.

They tilt their bowls away, each bit of chocolate
Sorbet being chased (demurely) by engraved spoons.
A man tells his neighbor "Now that's class!"
As she accepts his invitation to the theater.
They send their best men out into the snow
To grab a cab as they secure a final bottle of wine.

But regardless of the class of the chocolate,
Of the wine and the perfect spoons,
They're merely theater actors, stuck in the snow.

Dunes

i fell half asleep, one leg curled between yours, before i remembered how you came to me in the grass and shook your head and crinkled your nose. you'd come from the beach and said "i can't find it all but i know there is sand in my hair." and i combed the strands with my fingers, stretching your hair out behind you as you moved toward the house. i loved the soles of your feet as you walked away and i lay flat in the grass, waiting to be stitched to the ground, feeling the clouds in my eyelids. then you were above me with a half finished glass of rosé and sandy toes that tickled my ears as you smiled down at me, backlit by the sun.

Pacific

they sat, heedlessly, in the dirt and plucked tiny violet berries from the thicket. she felt against the grain of his corduroys and curled a finger in the shape of half a heart. he put his scalloped one to hers and completed it as she wrinkled toes and noses and fidgeted with the bangs framing her face. he pulled her head to his nose and smelled the sun in her buttery hair. and it grew darker than but they stayed fixed there, static and serene, a like-minded seduction of earth and slowing sun.

For Nora

noses rubbed perfect concentric circles on the panes as gauzy marshmallows seeped in cups of cordovan chocolate. he clasped her hand and they left the circles and the warmth. she was pulled outside and across the deck, slipping on the gelid steps as they made their way across the icebound yard. stopping under in the dusky shadow of a tree they began to waltz. she could feel the sparkly pins of her feet and she could feel the frozen air and she could feel they were rising-almost breaching the world's ceiling of stars-but all should could do was murmur simply, almost dumbly, "it's so beautiful, i feel so good." and he pulled her onto his toes and gave a long, shaky sigh as if the air around him had finally given him enough oxygen and they balanced there, wobbling on the edge of reason, nearly falling together into the black universe.