Alan: Sometimes another dimension – of memory? longing? – cuts in and scatters us like figures in a cubist painting.
The Commute
Without warning, his heart broke
open, spilling the contents of an entire
perfect summer day: the emollient air;
the paint-by-numbers dawn; the hammock
gazing odalisque-like from the shade;
the light within the shade spackling the underside of boughs
as if reflected from a pool or pond;
the cries of children playing, delightfully faint and far;
attar of roses and of new-mown lawn;
the hum of pollinators at their worthy task;
the wind-up bobolink’s robotic song;
subliminal recessional of thunder in late, cooling afternoon;
promise of fireflies jigging and winking at treetops
under a coquetish moon;
a sip of Chardonnay, a canapé, a Thou...
all this and more poured forth,
cooled, clotted, darkened, dried.
Meanwhile, eyes fixed, his mind continued on its course
from inconsequential A to insignificant B
along the straight line, l, of routine,
and as it did so, something in him
he had never thought to notice, spoke.
Nancy: Still, if you’re lost on a mountain, following the water downhill is probably a good idea.
Some Other Lies They Told Me
1. The sea is blue because the sky is blue.
except that this sky is nearly white
hardly blue but Bluets are white like this sky
is blue and steel is sometimes blue like this sea deep
polished gray not blue I see this with my own eyes
2. No two snowflakes are alike.
except when they come in flocks like sheep
and jump my fences if not alike they are certainly
of one mind and more alike than any sheep I ever saw
not one I could call by name or single out with my crook
3. Water always runs downhill.
unless you live by the sea unless you live
by the bay where water willfully runs up the little rivers
or sometimes runs from the wind where it will
carrying mummichogs and bladder wrack into the pasture
I have seen this with my own eyes.
“Some Other Lies They Told Me” first appeared in Slow Dancer magazine.
