Two Poems

14

          for L.

Three minutes and seven seconds. Remember our list of cats? 

            Two were days of the week, a dozen the names of flowers 
we took from a calendar. One year for your birthday 

you saw a rabbit on the lawn and made a wish with an eyelash. 

Yesterday, grazing on the same aster, a humble bee and 
a bumblebee. You pierced my ear with a safety pin, we attached 

and pushed off. April: A butterfly paused center frame, 

white pushpin above the lavender haze of its wing. March: Istanbul with 
birds and bonnets. 

                                    The kinds of gifts I give, you can find in 
a curio store. 
                             I like to think I provide the context exceptionally 

well, though: documenting every little serendipitous thing with 

narratives voiced over images of landmarks.
Didn’t we say we preferred this kind of courtship. I charge you 

for all the memories you’ve forgotten that I remember. 
My rate is much higher than yours, 

                                                                  even though you have
memories, too. There’s a flower called strawberry fields. 

I’m telling you. There’s a flower called sixteen candles. 

                                                                          I have a Bird in spring
                                                                        Which for myself doth sing—
                                                                        The spring decoys.
                                                                        And as the summer nears—
                                                                        And as the Rose appears,
                                                                        Robin is gone.

                                                                        Yet do I not repine
                                                                        Knowing that Bird of mine
                                                                        Though flown—
                                                                        Learneth beyond the sea
                                                                        Melody new for me
                                                                        And will ------.

                                                                        - Emily Dickinson

Your Brother’s Wedding

we smile and say
No not yet

or
No, no little one 

or
Maybe one day

or
We have two cats (hehe) . . . 

but never
No we’re unable

or
No never

or
No she’s barren, and 
he’s had his vasectomy already

or
She had an abortion

or
We miscarried this morning . . . 

then, if the women’s faces are plump
they grow gaunt

if the men’s faces are plump 
they grow plumper