The vanity lights above the bathroom sink Cast a shadow of his hair while he brushes his teeth; He sees dunegrass waving on Asilomar's sandy hills, Framed by a gray-white sky and shoreline fog; His mouth foam is whitecaps breaking beyond the dunes, And the peppermint flavor is the balm on her lips Joining hers to his in love's timeless lock, As they embrace in the face of a cool and salty breeze, The ecstatic passion of youth, youth of years upon years.
The pretty engineer took his arm
at the tunnel entrance;
They walked a mile
into the middle of the Andes,
into a frigid inferno.
"We've passed the border", she said,
facing the whine and grind
Of a giant rolling worm,
flashing sparks and lightening,
as it pushed into Argentina.
They returned to sunlight and ice,
and she handed him a stone,
An unsuccessful flirtation
as he released her hand,
but kept the rock.
She stammered about sensitivity
to air, humidity, temperature,
"In a hundred years it will be gone,
unlike love...".
He shrugged and left.
The stone, grey and white,
sat for months on a shelf,
Unchanging, leaving only dusty fingertips.
He was relieved when it was lost --
A century was too long to wait.
The feldspar image is copied from
the Minerals Database of the
"Minerals Education Coalition"
His first bold flight, a flash of blue,
he glided down a gentle arc
onto a sunlit lawn below,
And sensed the sudden shadow's cold
as feathers red above him broke
a hundred mile an hour stoop.
He felt sharp talons grip his chest,
and loosed his piercing wail for help
as chaos crashed about his world
When mother dove at raptor's head,
and father cursed obscenities
which even dogs could understand
They struck the head with clawing feet,
and screeching, pecking, flapped their wings
before the gaping hunter's beak,
Who, not so hungry anymore,
and careful of his precious eyes,
in all the grand confusion thought
It best to drop his tasty lunch
and lumber off, a wiser hawk,
and seek a less encumbered hunt.
The jays, still cursing everything,
although with somewhat softened voice,
convened a family meet above,
Where heartbeats slowed and breaths relaxed,
in tones now low and comforting,
the parents gave their stern advice,
"Don't ever hesitate, dear child --
just scream like banshee, claw at eyes,
the secret to a longer life!"
The image is a modification of
Bill Shissler's photograph
"Get Away Kid, You Bother Me"
© BillShiss Photography).
He wore the shirt she met him in
for many days, a week he thought,
Then finally she dared to speak,
"Your shirt, it reeks, please wash it soon!"
She might as well have slapped his face,
and yet they still fell fast in love,
But after this, his shirts were clean,
were always different every day,
Since at the laundromat he found
a plastic bottle green in hue
Containing simple laundry soap,
the secret elixir of love.
"I'm sorry about the Moon...", he said.
"Oh! What an interesting sentence!",
she replied,
smiling with unexpected delight.
Love illuminated them
in the recovered lunar glow.