MISSED OPPORTUNITY
I overheard his cry for help
in among the reference books
where the young librarian expects
to offer solace or at least direction.
She could not. I knew the answer,
but withheld, too cloistered
in the cool disguise of privacy.
My hoarded words now lie in limbo,
so much flotsam useless on the shore.
He may take the A train, find
the link, while I still standing on the platform,
feel the chill of what has passed.
SHOPPING MALL AS CAVE AND FOUNTAIN
Under a confetti of light
an expectation of shoppers
escalated drawn toward water
I am a blue silk shirt a checkbook fountain
I am a small black-skirted woman too gone
to run-down heels put me in your pocket
for aging gypsy wood
I am in my infancy only what happens beyond
toddle me toddle this baby not for sweeping
I am a worker stamped with an emblem
pushcart of trash heaped in my nostrils
the dump & plastic bag of daily waste
I am a wayside watcher more than
a topic of my own conversation
I am these naked legs spider me
over under around & through
The Gap zap zipper & buckle of fashion
If this were the first place on the Planet X
I'd look for trees or a reasonable facsimile
pushy enough to crash the skylight
to another air
BLUE
(Approximate & Exact)
Optional at the beginning
but around it air,
the space between leaves
necessary as light.
A trail uninterrupted
& what surrounds almost like music.
Nothing repeats. The tree is gone.
Green expands into untried
emptiness. What happens, wind,
rain, the slip & crack of earth
alter, sloping the reliability of walls.
But here it is
the fierce persistence, an astonishment
of blue above the lake.
Peggy Aylsworth is co-director of the West Coast Poets and Writers Forum. Her poetry has appeared in Cincinnati Poetry Review, Laurel Review, Blue Buildings, Beyond Baroque Magazine, California Quarterly and others. In 1989, "Letters To The Same Address, a book of poems in dialogue with her husband, Norm Levine, was published by Momentum Press, followed in 1995 by their second book "Along These Lines". |
