Cheers!

We praise our lined faces.  We forgive time.
We raise our cups of double-pressed wine.
We know brute forests from our seed-time
We know heaven will cleave those we entwine
The season of heat is slow to erupt.
April is late. March is still covered with snow,
Its shabby sheet weak shoots barely interrupt.,
Succession and succession is what we know.

In the thronged marketplace  we know we’ll find
Lines of who came before and  who came after
All seem in be arranged by some infinite mind
Knowing where our line goes will not stop our laughter.

We dance. All dances are in our repertoire.
We know we’re headed to that sacred abattoir.


Marc Tretin

Oceans fish stars, that are overhead, swimming;
those dying masses of sun, looking the night sky
to pieces.  Silver dots barely skimming
deep dwelling currents that invisibly ply sky
netting that makes the sea’s mirror, a gridded
field filled with shoals of stars setting small fires
that out last the jettings of Amber Jack and squid
around a sea turtle who they easily tire.
Filled with eggs, ready to be this moon’s batch
on a brief beach made white by the nights contrast.
Not all turtles will inevitably hatch.
Those who will, will live if lucky and fast.
The stars, that insignificantly wink,
ride the currents that rise and sink

Getting to a 4

After the dinner of rising losses,
in the bedroom, where open finds shut, shut
finds open, a sprawled business shirt crosses
the flowered spread. Its armless sleeve in the rut
between two pillow with matching bolsters.
A sole cufflink, like a dignified mourner,
ignored the calls of a telephonic pollster.
Its brother is abandoned in the corner,
by the shoe boxes arrayed in columns
of flats, high heels and sneakers for the gym;
sneakers worn down by her vow given solemnly:
“If I lose weight, I won’t mind losing him.”
In her closet, pantsuits size 8, size 6 size 4
And tiny cut-offs hanging from the door.


Marc Tretin