What then shall they discuss?

The sad-sweet months
when they trekked through
Europe, those hot nights
when they made love inside
a canvas tent or the untimely
death of a mother an ocean
away?

Nature, love, poetry,
art, old snapshots, a
seance that scared
them so many years
ago or that draft of an
old will found in a
long-forgotten
trunk in the attic?

Maybe they'll set aside their
memories and tasks,
let nostalgia drift away
like an  absentminded
ghost or uninvited guest.

All their energies should rise
to a final nervous pitch
when they raise their
glasses high and
wet their arid lips.

Withdrawing to an empty room
I shut out light
and breathe arrhythmically

Childlike I warm myself
with dark vibrant blankets
as I fall deeper and deeper
into a dream
within a dream

A madwoman's fingertips
skim down the side of my head,
an old man's remains
are lowered
into sacred ground,
darkness smothers
a snowman mourning
in the blue night
of winter

i took her to the vet that morning
for the last time

i remember it was raining
and the lady at the vet's office
was sweet and caring
with a pleasant voice
and a kind heart

it was still only morning
still raining
when i drove home

i parked the car
and walked toward the house
knowing that my wonderful dog -
my beautiful "rose" -
would not suffer anymore
and that for the first time
in her fourteen years on this earth
she would not be there
waiting for me

my hand shook
as i held the key
to unlock the door
and the key fell on the step

and on the other side of the door
no one would be waiting
nothing would be there

nothing
but that awful silence

I see ladies of a certain age
jump out at me,
breaking through sidewalks
with their floppy handbags
and floral dresses,
a gaggle of clowns
enjoying a last laugh,
giggling like girls
on a long-ago prom night.

Suddenly I'm charmed
by the vision
of a lovely young woman
greeting a tall man.
He hands her white orchids
and a beribboned box of candy.
The man does not see her
wink at me
as his massive arms encircle her
and the sidewalks open up again,
swallowing us up in seconds
while our aged revelers flee
in adolescent revolt.

someone still likes
the way words
race across a page
like brazen insects

someone still marvels
at the magic and movement
of poetry
rhythms that challenge
and calm the heart

someone still respects
the simple music
of a single sonnet
so sweetly sounding
the reader whirls
in exhilaration
like a ballerina
in a sunlit room

now take the words
and make them twist
and turn and jump
and rise and fall

you are their master
their leader their captain
make them bow to your voice
make them cower and despise you
call you hateful names
curse your power

bind them up
in a choke hold
watch the blood
fill their faces
their tiny mouths
squealing in pain

then release them slowly
into the night
whispering your forgiveness
currying their favor
for you know
in their naked humility
in their confusion and fear
they are
after all
only words

Three in the morning, halfway
through my shift at a printing
plant. I'm tired as always, my
mind frazzled, my eyes bleary.
I'm creeping through the night
as I proofread technical manuals
and pharmaceutical ads and
brochures aimed at type two
diabetics. I'm on life support
here, stuck in a depressing gray
environment, a vampire on the
graveyard shift, the burial
ground of too many aging English
majors struggling to make a buck
while the rest of the world is home
asleep, dreaming in color, people
whose minds and bodies will forever
have a normal relationship with
sunlight.

As I proofread, I listen to talk radio
with its opinionated personalities,
irate callers, and nocturnal candor,
all of it making those Sinatra-like
wee small hours of the morning fly
by like a moth rushing toward
a bright burning bulb.

at summer's end, she is in the
fabled city of light, drifting in
a romantic evening of soft breezes,
streets majestically lined with trees,
the brilliant and luminous eiffel tower

she is thinking of those she turned
against, people she had once trusted,
admired, adored, loved - and then spurned -
her mother, husband, sister, brother,
friends, each one falling away like
those endless bouquets presented to
her at state visits...bright, beautiful
flowers, their petals dropping, dreamlike,
from her arms, falling like little pieces
of flesh floating lazily to the ground

she faces the tunnel now, fearful that she
might disappear in the cavern of lights,
the glistening mercedes, almost airborne,
moves at a furious speed, she ends up
trapped in the car, slammed against a
wall, she does not even know, in this
moment of profound loss, that she has
no voice to speak, to call out, to plead,
her eyes fluttering wildly at the lights
glaring at her in the tunnel