I know a girl who saves

her dead orchid blooms

in a drawer in her vanity.

I called her sentimental

and she laughed, saying,

"I'm ****** in the head is

all."

Anita grabbed her picnic basket and ran

to the forest's edge. Mottled light splashed

about her feet as she disappeared beneath

its canopy. The air was sweet. Her pulse

quickened as she hurried on, sidestepping

a familiar obstacle and leaping over

a fallen tree. But, as she landed, she froze.

Trepidation sharpened her senses to a

razor's edge, and the basket slipped from

her hand. Fast in the throes of intuition,

she called for her niece, "Lucretia!!"

A gust of wind pushed through the canopy.

A branch of deadwood crashed to the ground.

Anita started forward, stumbling over the basket.

"Lucretia!"

Crows answered, and her fear boiled over.

"Lucretia!" she screamed, stumbling down the

darkening path. She rounded a boulder,

"Gracious, what lung power," Lucretia said.

"Where were you? You scared me half to death."

"Discovering a bitter, old swamp with fat tadpoles

lazing about in the murk of drowning pools."

"A swamp, you say?" questioned Anita.


"Yes-yes! A torment of green algae and

incessant croaking. There are fallen cedars,

patches of sunlight and orchids springing from

decay. The perfect milieu for a picnic."

"You're a horrid little thing," Anita said,

pulling Lucretia close and kissing the

top of her head.

Young Albert taped a sign to
his fold-out table and set it
on the sidewalk.

Lemonade 5 cents. Tulips and
toads are free to a good home.

A passing woman dropped a nickel
on the table.

Albert poured her lemonade and
held it out along with a tulip.

"Flowers are alone," said Albert.

"I know," replied the woman,
reaching for the flower.

"I have no toads to give," said Albert.

"No matter, young man, both
are desolate creatures."

"It's as I thought," mused Albert,
"There is no difference between
them."

The woman sipped from
her cup, saying,

"Toads are less charitable."

Our carriage rolled along a narrow street,

rumbling over cobblestones, passing signs

that creaked in the alpine breeze and streetlamp

flickers. The midnight sky and its crush of

stars glowed, a distance beyond the whisper

of my prayers.

Aphrodite gazed at me solemnly, saying,

"I have great pity for Sappho; she lept

from a cliff into the Aegean Sea.

So it is with all whom I love."

The hours I spend watching
seasons from my window
have increased of late.

Today, my sister, Felice, came
to my chamber, saying:

"Gregory, the gate needs oiling."

"Gregory, the roof is in disrepair."

Disrepair? I should think so,
yet I am loathe to leave this
garden bower and the thrill of its
funerary dreams.

Whaler's wives have risen for their husbands,

lost at sea, then hastened from that churchyard,

and to December's beach.

To keep once more the widow's

watch, so wistfully they waited,

with flagging hopes and splintered hearts,

and rainfall on their prayer books.

Then tears upon their caskets,

laid low beneath that hallowed ground.

She stood on Stonington Point, looking seaward to Long Island Sound.

A shore breeze lifted her hair. Eddies swirled, and Stephanie remembered. The man had blond curls and strong hands. He'd dressed in brown khaki pants and a blue T-shirt.

A ferry from Fisher's Island brought him.

They'd talked while Stephanie showed him about her antique shop inside the Velvet Mill Mall.

She felt herself flush when he looked at her. He said his name and offered a handshake. "Manny."

They could rendezvous outside the mall and go for a drink.

She sold him an antique pinwheel and brushed a finger across the top of his hand.

But he hadn't returned as promised, and after a two-hour wait, she drove home to Darlene Street.

*

The following morning, Stephanie wrote a check—this was a down payment for a duplex—sealed it in an envelope, tramped wet leaves along Darlene Street, and posted the envelope in the maildrop.



Her mother, Madge,  had napped poorly that day.

"Who's there?" she asked as Stephanie slipped back inside. "Is that you, Steph?"

"It's me, Mama. I had a cigarette."

Stephanie hastened to the kitchen and snatched the cigarette pack to hide in her purse.

A moment later, Madge appeared in a stinky bathrobe, toe corns, and snoopy slippers. Her eyes shifted from the purse, lingering on her daughter's hands, then moved to Stephanie's face.

"Hmmph, there's no sleep for me since Walter passed. I thought I'd be provided for."

She limped across the kitchen and peered out a window, past a chain-link fence to the *****'s house. A flake of mucus whistled in her nose, then fell to the floor.

"I know, I know," said Stephanie.

*

In the evening, Stephanie drove Madge and Aunty Bunny to bingo night, a ten-minute trip from Darlene Street to the Christian Ladies Auxiliary in Westerly, Rhode Island.

Stephanie knew Madge and Aunty Bunny would take hours to cover their rounds, so she headed home. It was rather a long stretch of road to her new duplex in Mystic. She didn't mind; the farther from Darlene Street, the better.



Arriving home, she sat at a window, waiting for Madge and Aunty Bunny to finish their rounds.

Across the street, the textile mill's second shift lunch whistle blew.

She moved the curtain a little, watching the workers filing, mustering under a streetlamp with fluttering moths.

She leaned forward, but the man with blond curls and strong hands did not come, and he would not come again.

Other men were there, and women, too, sitting on the curb, cracking open Quonset hut lunch pails and steamy thermoses.

Stephanie went to the living room, reaching for the clothing she'd ordered online: brown khaki pants and a blue T-shirt.

She laid them out, then stuffed them with ticky-tack.

How wistful, she thought. She reached to adjust a button.

"I'd do anything for anybody if they'd only let me," she murmured.

The phone rang, and she slid the bar. Madge swearing profusely over Bunny's emphysemic wheezing.

Donna Divine was my neighbor

and my physical superior. The day

we met, she knocked me down and

Jacked my arm behind my back.

"Take it back," she shouted.

"I didn't do anything!"

Her younger brother Robert said,

"She doesn't like anybody saying.

She's pretty."

With that, she jacked my arm higher.

"Ok-ok, I take it back!"

I sat up, rubbing my arm, and then ran for

the safety of our garage, yelling,

"You're pretty, and you smell like soap!"

We were eleven years old back then.

Our houses sat together on down-sloping

Ledges with footpaths that led to the beach.

We had concrete patios in the gap between

Our back doors and the sharply rising hillside.

When the sun followed its route over our roof tiles,

its rays touched the peaks, then hurried past the

gaps so as not to disturb the eternal gloom.

We'd lean out our windows on Sunday's

Approaching sunsets and chat across the divide.

In time, Donna gave up her brawling ways. Still,

she excelled at skimming stones, ice skating,

and dodgeball. And she was the picture of health,

if I may be so bold.

I watched my grandmother die one night--

just a little, but not for Chaplin, the old

boot. It was late. The dour announcement

Appeared on a flickering Tube.

It was Marilyn they’d ****** on.

Antonia let go of something then.

Her hope, I think.

They laid me to rest in verdant climes.

The Forest Lady was lush in Summer.

At Summer's end, her hair blazed with Fall

Palettes. Of a winter, her ice-covered arms

Glimmered overhead while her silent

White carpets rolled to frozen cathedrals.

Cindy knelt at her bedstand, clutching a rosary.

She whispered a prayer for the downtrodden,
and for the Sisters of Mercy who'd raised her
in the Angel Guardian Orphanage.

Light flickered, the kitchenette's fluorescent tube,
bleeding through the gaps in her bedroom door.

She yanked a shade string, her eyes narrowing
as a patrol car's lamps strobed the window.

Outside the murk of her Greenwich Village flat,
neon reflected in rain puddles; a rat scurried
down a gutter drain.

Twenty years before, she'd slept with Artie Shaw.
She was a moll with a mouth full of pearls,
walking where she pleased, shopping 5th Avenue:
her flaming red hair, a smatter of freckles
on her porcelain broach complexion.

Cindy touched her face, reliving the horror
of the shotgun stock that ruined her looks.
She'd known better than to toy with a mob boss's son.
But she'd let him pursue her until a love triangle
ended his life and brought the father's revenge.

She brought the crucifix to her lips,
whispered goodbye, then reached for
the pistol in her bedstand's drawer.

Conrad, you old schooner, sent from your cove,

Of wayward souls, your hero braved an ocean,

Then drifted past a shoal. Now, landing on a

Shanghaied beach, he trekked into the wasteland,

Where choking plumes of ash rained dreadfully

On the columns. And death did cheer and taste the

Seeds of woe that reaked of slaver's greed, while

Scores of his familiars breathed charnel vapors

From his salt mines.

Winter has come and gone, and I
watch the sun through pixelated
eyes.

Gliding on mildew and
mite-pungent litter, I head for
the Old Mill Pond.

I stop to linger in the shade
of mushroom caps, watching
children collect tadpoles at the
pond's edge.

The caps rain spores that stick and
spoil my ooze—Ah, a toxicity that
bloodworms and mephitic termites
find unpalatable.

Thus, I am free to sip the
aphids gathering around me.

What good is your promise,

You've gone to time's lagoons.

We splashed in ankle surf,

And tugged a sinking kite.

What was that prayer you whispered

In twilight’s arctic desert,

Where the raging of your storms died

Beneath the August moon?

What good are your echoes,

Your shells forswore their tide pools.

Your gift of raptured pearls

Lie squandered on a winter beach.

And when you took your leave,

So thoughtless through that darkest gate.

With hammered copper on your eyes,

You spent your mother's heart.

Then led her down those dour halls,

So guiltless in her mortal shame.

To rue the sunrise of each day

And weep upon her daughter's grave.

Switch let out a doggish yelp and

Leaped to join his master. They both

Wound up in barbwire as we

Clattered down the track.

It was me who pushed Lea on the ties

And Jake, who kicked his dog and

Both of us what spooned his beans and

Smoked up his tobacco.

And then we tore Lea’s bedroll.

But there was nothing left to steal.

Cause all that he had left was a

Picture of his Ma.

For my final act of meanness, I tossed

That picture out the door then wallowed

In my discontent, cause God was

There and judged us.

And then we laid in straw corners, mewling

Over Lea’s Crooked teeth, his shuffling

Gait and his Faithful mutt. I knew that we’d

All burn in Hell.

But he'd tasked our generosity.

At fifteen, your sepulcher was nearly

complete, dear lover, slabs of immutable

granite set in place with your premonition,

with the diligence of your lovely hands, then

christened with your blood disease.

At thirty, you brought out the worst in me;

you lived then died in the places you’d

grown to despise. You tiptoed away on

stiletto heels, crossing shifting shale,

so pretty, pretty in fine silk stockings.

I wanted to bleed for you. Instead I

embrace your vapor, and the lock of your hair

you kindly left me. The years have passed,

dear lover.  Your letters have yellowed

with antiquity, yet still, I wait at your Orphean

gate, pondering our jeweled romance and the

bludgeoned rats in our cellars.

Pretty, pretty Filipina had straight hair

and a bad upbringing.

She had fertile effervescence.

She knew how to smile and talk,

and she knew how to shake it, taut like

a dodgeball.

She sketched funny pictures with her warm hands.

She liked vinyl booths, tiny bites,

sugar packets, and seedy bars.

She liked Couture and Manolo Blahniks and Sass.

She liked those things. She did.

But mostly, she liked to tie off her arm and dream.

There is a pond in my backyard.

Its waters have no sparkle,
or Koi and I fret over its mucky
bottom as it burps up fleets of
late summer algae blooms that
cling to its edges.

The creatures there would gladly
seize me; were I to misstep, skidding
on elbows into their murk, where
the snappers are large, languid,
and hell-bent on destroying me.

But how was I to know—

You see, I’d crushed their old comrade while
maneuvering that blasted truck through the
high grass in surrounding fields.

The snappers hate me no less for this admission.

Meanwhile:

The cattails sway in the breeze.

The heron steps in the shallows

The blackbirds weave their nests.

A muskrat lingers in a hole in the bank.

A rabbit crouches and shivers while

The weasel waits on its chance.

And it was six months later, I discovered
his broken shell lying pressed to the ground.

I thought it strange before realizing it was
I who’d stolen his days in the sun. I’d see
him no longer on his sunning stones.

But how was I to know—

Not to return, she left her pail

Upon the glistening sand.

Then, crashed into a mighty break,

with all its dazzling spray.

Then, hearing father's voice call out,

she hastened back for shore. But riptide

Bound, she found herself beyond the

Coral edges. Where sharks will

Glide and paint the foam far from

Beachgoers blankets while seabirds

Circled o're the fray, bearing witness to

Her summer's day.

Did you sense my emergence, good beak,
A gloopy shell dragging egg slime and sand
to the waiting sea.
With clammy innards, I lumbered
under a morose sun while you
pecked my eyes to nourish
your blood disease.
Adieu, good beak, it was mine to
be momentary.

I’m better when you do not

Imagine me an honorable man.

You, with your breeding, your

alpine beauty and pluck,

are symphonically designed.

And I ... nothing better than a rat.

Yesterday -- in Reykjavik -- the wind

Put pink in your porcelain features.

Today, you’ve dressed in assortments:

Flashbulb smiles, bluest silks, and

Embroidered Lotus flowers.

Tomorrow, you’ll forget me.