Three Poems

A Marriage of Opposites

the man wore doves
white feathers flapping
and feces dripping

 

his wife wore fish
only she sang in the scales of air
and they kept dying

 

they were quite a pair
the two of them

 

him with the frantic avian shrieks
and her with the gaping ichthyic mouths

Peter Pan in Shadow and Light

"A few moments afterwards the other boys saw Hook in the water striking wildly for the ship; no elation on the pestilent face now, only white fear, for the crocodile was in dogged pursuit of him."
—J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

windows open out of rooms
windows open into rooms
in withers of brindled light

 

you take flight
in your green-youth-suit
for the mothers will pin up your shadow
faster than an eye's wink

 

remember she who left you
her sliver-of-glass face
in your dream
your mother

 

remember the man
his hooked face
who visited again and again
uncle so and so
always with the hands

 

the shadows of lost boys
cannot be pinned down
they are flying in the sacristy
of wild birds

 

I will send you a crocodile
for your Captain Hook
the crocodile is also a type of mother

 

The Sandwich and Social Hierarchy

In the great hall of sandwiches
there is a long table

 

At the low linoleum end
I find liverwurst with mayonnaise
the ground-up parts of pigs
between white bread

 

It mushes between my teeth
savory and crunchy
with iceberg lettuce
and mayonnaise

 

At the high end
the walls are painted
burnt orange
and obscure classical music plays

 

The sandwiches all have chewy bread
are filled with Kalamata olives
garlic spreads
and coarse ground mustards

 

There is a circle of sandwiches
set up highest
with the sign
“crusted with hand-harvested sea salt”
A few are eating
in paroxysms of joy

 

The hand-harvested sea salt
must be the key
the taste of the cracked fingers
of far-off villagers combing
the salt beds along an ocean

 

Each bed a blue reflective square
holding clouds and salt
holding the skin