Friend one:
Reads "Rotten Tomatoes"
Always early, parks in a handicap zone

Friend two:
quietly disapproves
knows Friend one walked her dog a mile earlier

Friend one:
moves her car
digs out two waters, chocolate
and back pillow
buys peace and tickets

Friend two:
catches sneeze with *** of tissue
aggravated exchange:
about walking too fast ahead.
“Are you not my friend?  Walk with me!”
Buys popcorn

Friend one: 
  wants seats on the end
for handy bathroom runs

Friend two:
does not want “the blow by blow” of reasons
just not in rafters
sneezes, and says so
trips
spills popcorn on the stairs

Friend one:
Sets up “camp”

Friend two:
holds crap

Friend one:  
Settles in, builds her "nest"
opens water bottles
arranges back pillow
half-a-million napkins
“Want your jacket?”

Friend two:
holds popcorn, helps Friend one with jacket

Friend one: 
  pushes button for her seat back
seat sounds like a ****.

Friend two:
says so, both laugh like fools  
Friend two sneezes loudly, rubs her eyes
loses self in movie

Friend one:
starts to snore quietly

Friend two:
nudges her

Friend one:
(Who is never really snoozing)
runs out to restroom
misses best part of movie
Comes back,
“What happened?”
What happened?”

Friend two:
aggravated
hushes her
takes allergy pill

Friend one:
weeping at the end, watches all the credits
starts her review
apologizing to the kids of theater-cleaning-crew
popcorn, napkins, tissues everywhere

Friend two:  
Sneezes yet again

Friend one:
Knows all the stars--
of friendship

being how she is one :)

The sky glides through peach
settles in
to the gray...
I look away

Night

What am I supposed to tell
the children when they bring
their deformed beasts to me?

I teach them the word menagerie as
they clear the project table and sweep
up cuttings from the kitchen floor.

We gather without you for another
slow parade of meticulously made
animals, and I’m embarrassed to
mistake their swans for butterflies.

The sky aligns edge to edge,
a yellow sheet of cellophane,
the afternoon cut and creased
and folded like fractal creature:
a crane inside
a crane inside
a crane.

Somewhere between a bicycle
and a seat at a daydream...

I had to make money
so I mortgaged
my woods, my sea, my music
Words--
left
Regaled only with rust
my 1938 Columbia
bike
(sold for a crib)
to an antique dealer

Fat-tires, red-faded fenders
Baskets saddled on wheel
for towel and lunch
Key chain dangling
jingling against jar
of cool ginger ale

Look back at the baskets-filled
afternoons at the park
I was a poet
The road
laid itself bare
For my bike
and I
scrolling through leaves
like words that fell
like hair across shoulders
that I sang to no one

the audience--  
air
I know that now
I was not really…
nor ready

I once was a poet
_

This poem was based on a black and white photo of Harry Bertschmann as a young artist,
posed proudly by his magnificent work.  First two lines of my poem were my immediate reaction to his painting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/nyregion/the-struggling-artist-at-86.html

there is a tree
growing in this
womb
its roots cracking
from fissured earth
the trunk, in layers
                    unwrapping
sprouting solid
from ancient rebirth
Breathing light
into branches,
unfurling -
not always
with ease, yet
always in a rising,
not always in comfort
but in the end
a widening,
        lit horizon
of past blood lining shed
of crimson cycles renewed
of old patterns,
            gone and dead
of mosaic seedlings strewn
and now before
sacred eyes
a photosynthesis occurs
revealing leaflets, tender
reaching into
grounded universe
I am a star-system
a stellar orbit landscape
a singing cosmic rune
a ring of phosphate fire
under tourmaline moon
rubies, garnets, onyx
all pouring from this
innermost, feminine cavern
liquid gold, in lava form
precious metals,
a righteous storm
wild dancers
around the blaze
swaying magic
in midnight haze
and here I stand,
in uterine gleam
the fruit of my soul
the queen
          of my
dream

Some days are gone before they leave...
that taste in my mouth
Why do I care?
What is this air?
going in by itself?

I should drink coffee black
take chocolate bitter
My wine turned to vinegar
Acerbic
so next to
spit-
out
the ferments of rage

There are words
there is nothing
there are words
there is nothing
there are words
there is nothing
as abandoned

as a vacant page

oh, how in this dark
oh, how the wave flows,
the sky black and stark-
oh, how the wind blows.

the little dogs bark
their songs full of woes,
oh, how in this dark-
oh, how the wind blows.

the autumn draws nigh -
last splash of the rose,
a withering sky-
oh, how the wind blows!

Sleeping well
Loneliness is a warm quilt
to wrap in
to dream of little things
purring
They will outlive me
but cannot fill me

Time has outrun me
on its way
into the lives of others
and their companions

...their sunsets over ocean
their candlelight
their whispers
their tender touching

I don't know how it happened
but like the moon wrapped
in her sparkling quilt of dark

loneliness became
me....