she stood outside the apartment
finger halfway up her nose
scratching with her free hand
a **** loosely encased
in patchy, ***** blue jeans
ratty sneakers with holes where
her toes and dignity poked through

usually a whiner, a brayer
a donkey among gently purring cats
calling down thunder and racket
like a motorcycle tearing circles through a lamp shop

today, of all days, she swayed

silently
in loose waltz time
to soft piano of a long-dead Frenchman
curling down from speakers
mounted in windows
across the street

her misshapen hips and flexing calf muscles
lifting her up in a rude en pointe
somehow made elegant
by a quiet ballad, a soothing moment
on a hot August morning
in Main Street
of the hinterlands.

2/12/2015

When your fingers move
within the betweens of keys,
white then black, scaling
and tumbling through and over
knuckles and joints and wrinkled
imprints does your chest flutter
arpeggios and dance along
with tender pale-pink ballet
slippers balancing, spinning
in a reflecting room of mirrors,
the echoes of a pentatonic scale
the pounding of parallel chords
nudging your toes exactly right,
do you forget your wives and daughter,
both Emma’s, when you let the genius-flow
and the grand piano waltz
with your soul,
do you fall in love with something
more I cant describe
in verse, delicate Debussy.

Debauchery.
That is the void in her life.
Debauchery.
Deep, endless debauchery.

The elevator closed and, in her mind, she saw them grabbed each other. She saw her back pressed against the railing; his palm pressed against the wall. She saw his arm around her waist; hers around his nape, holding a notebook.

Classes have ended and, in her mind, she saw them – her lover and his past lover – disappeared.

She saw things that happened many years ago. On a sofa in the living room, in the car, on a piece of cloth, in the open air, under the stars, against the tree and wall, every time they were together. She saw his hips against hers, their bodies coiled and inseparable and buried in anticipation and ultimate fire.

Unable to bear the torment, she grabbed her laptop
and wrote the things she saw
many, many years ago. (To be continued)

The others must have seen me, but I remained unnoticed to their vision. I stood there. I stood still as they passed by, that certain couple in their 20s whose form of entertainment revolved around alcohol and apples and sneaking behind the tree or inside the car. Nothing astounding.

Their steps carry the particular type of urgency available only to the ordinary and the fools. He clasped his fingers around hers and thought about the future, being married and all that, but she was bored with him. She looked almost trapped.

I watched him open the door to the passenger’s seat. I watched her enter the car. I watched him follow in barefoot, and I watched them drown themselves in hours and shadows and whispers and when they finally went out, she still looked bored even with his promises and hundred years. (To be continued)