An old man with broken teeth
sits on the house steps
where he spits and sputters
hurling invectives
at no one in particular
I try to ignore him,
walk carefully past, keys
in hand just in case.
He is mostly a nuisance,
but sometimes, especially at night,
he lashes out, his talon fingers
scratching at the moon,
shrieking my name.
And yet another postcard, this one of Paris. A winter scene, the Seine with a graceful cantilever bridge, the Eiffel Tower rising from the distant mist while closer trees are perfect half-snow curves. An image copyrighted the year you entered this world.
The last one before this showed bison in a snow-blanketed Yellowstone. It was taken the year after you met. The message was brief, one of his puns. Have you herd I love you?
Others have come at random intervals, the scenes mostly foreign and undated. A man and woman, their dogs’ leashes tangled, the feeling they’re strangers or estranged friends. One of a church. We could have been married here. So many winter settings. Not surprising. But why so many of Paris, a place you’ve neither ever been, together or apart?
Do you foolishly save these in a box buried deep in your closet, hidden like your heart? Perhaps you throw them out, the read and unread; maybe you taunt your husband by letting them lie about. What would happen if you answered?
walking up
these stairs
again
the tears
pooling
in my chest.
i hear the
mighty words
pressed with a
stronger sword.
a call for justice
a cry for peace.
silver pieces
in return.
Some people called
My whole life a defense mechanism…unfairly
I thought. So I took the kids to the zoo
And bought a quarter’s worth of birdfeed
to appease a free range parade of contemptuous
Flamingos who looked ready to spit their wad
right in my eye; backing away in fear
I spied a pair of metallurgical porcupines
Copulating under a rose hedge. Immediately
I knew that in this insanely speckled world
The flapping flipping flopping dishevelment
Of love was just around the corner
Cyclone kiss christens honey ships
Salty springs unhinge ruby kings
Control your mind, my girl
Riots silence whispers, undo
Binding battles, through and through
Control your mind, my girl
Mirrored poetry strewn and burned
Ashes of evidence, lips turned
Control your mind, my girl
Battle beats bloody feats, harsh hearts
Supple surrender disembarked
Control your mind, my girl
♡Anastasia Z. Cunningham
06-25-2020
ice cream pearls pinecones pieces of cloud tender fronds cardinal staccato
moss-veined twigs coneflower petals kite tails sea glass mist
thunder’s edge grass perfume rain-stained rocks
slice of titian sunset Chinese yo-yo
lace fragments
tumble & slide down
a woodsy chute lined with Aegean
sea tangle glistening like crocodile eyes into your soil-
smudged waiting hands trembling with anticipation like childhood
A spacecraft shaped like a whale body with a smoky mauve
crescent moon as a tail-flipper, glides through the gauzy,
gold-pink glow of an alien atmosphere. Three smaller vessels
hover near—one reminiscent of a white seagull, another a pair
of black upside-down wings or a mustache with one side bushier
than the other, and a lone oval eye. The whaleship heads past
an emerald planet to the docking station in front of a charcoal moon.
They’ll cradle the ship’s belly in a curved expanse, recharge
before heading home. On the deck, sharp-angled women
dance to ethereal sounds floating through rosy dusk.
Pounds of peaches
Picked in Georgia
Trucked to Kentucky
Become
Pounds of peachy flesh
Increasing girth
Through baked goods.
TO THE RUNNER OF HARRODSBURG
Running is his religion
that heart pounding
muscle aching discipline
of stride that carries him to oblivion,
He’s been running all his life
what’s behind him
has faded
what’s beside him
is blurred and
what’s in front of him
he can never reach
He runs alone
no one else can keep the pace.
Some have tried but
he left them behind.
Or they abandoned him
for an easier path
a slower way.
Does he run from the past
or to the future?
He runs up alleys and
across highways.
He never stops for lights
or signs
he is not afraid
he is protected.
Running is his religion.
Tony Sexton
