Esmerelda sits beside
the ten ton granite boulder
pried from some Pleistocene moraine
embedded now between
the blue-mirrored towers
of the downtown mini plaza.
With nibbling lips unkissed
since the previous July,
she picks ant-sized chips
of black nail polish
off the slender fingers
of her un-ringed left hand,
while her right scrolls down
an endless screen
of food truck exotica
sent by friends unseen
for weeks on end:
Bacon wrapped ‘round anything
promising to restore
the sizzle that has dribbled off
since boyfriend Bill's retreat.
Key lime infused elixirs
whisper drink me and I’ll whisk you
off to sugary beaches where
the breeze is warm and sweet,
as if treats for her belly
could satisfy the cravings
of more Southern regions.
The noon sun slips
behind the peak
of the latest high rise lair
and a shadow spills
across the plaza.
Esmerelda rises
from her stony seat,
drops her lunch bag
in the maw of the trash bin
on the corner. Sparrows quickly
swoop to vanish the crumbs
she's left scattered at her feet.
Tom, who waits
for the signal to change
across the street, admires
the gleam of Esmeralda's
long black hair. He smiles
as they pass by each other
in the crosswalk, but fails
to catch her eye.
He kicked the trash bin
on the corner. Three times.
Spun around waving
his fist in the air.
Ran dirt blackened fingers
though the nest of his hair,
shouted at the panicking pigeons
in the financial district air,
-Your whores and ideas
hurt my head.
What poison is this,
polluting his mind,
imbibed at his mother’s
tit or felt with his fathers fist?
or lost in the cold sands
of a mountain village
where hell severed
his last connection
to the divine.
The indigent lady
who sits in her wheelchair
outside Starbucks
holding her cardboard sign
that implores “can you help?”
blesses me for the two dollars
I drop in her cup and smiles sadly
as the young man
careens down Battery Street
cursing sandwiches, smartphones,
and short skirts.
The corner lady inquires
how was my day?
and I say it was fine,
then I ask her
where do you stay?
Here and there, she says,
where do you,
is it nice?
The words were so damn thin
red ballpoint ink that blobbed
where she had hesitated.
I’m so sorry, i tried,
but it's not getting better
I just can't..... I fed the cat
the dishes are clean
I’m so sorry.
The car was gone
but not her suitcase.
My guts threatened
to hit the floor.
The woman who answered
my nine one one call
asked where she might go.
The bridge, I said. check the bridge.
But i was wrong.
She'd sought a gentler height
in fact no height at all,
no cliff from which to fall.
Out on the sandy spit
at the end of the road.
A mistaken destination
where the edge of the world
is flat and sandy, and the sea
disappears from the beach
as it reaches towards
the curve of infinity
and the distant shore
of the land of the rising sun.
The officer who came
to the house, stood there
at the counter, while the cat
hid under the couch.
A message crackled
in his earpiece
then he said,it's ok
she's on her way home.
Look out kid,
it's an easy skid
from cardboard sliding
down the wild rye and barley
grass of summer days
to a corrugated doorway bed.
The pastures
you once knew
entombed beneath
a home, a park, a parking lot,
some trouble with the magistrates
for sleeping on a heating grate.
The hopes torn off the calendar
remembered in a soft focus gaze
as lazy as a Saturday matinee
seen through the wrong end
of a dime store telescope, evaporate.
The romance of that distant dance,
the hot kiss, entranced,
under harvest-colored crepe,
shimmers on in golden hues
while the week before
is lost in the haze and blur
of interchangeable news reports.
Mr Paige was sage
with his advice,
it's not age that chases us,
but the end of all that was.
They stood in a square of old daffodils
that traced the footprint of where
the old farmhouse had once been.
A mild day, cottonball clouds.
Tiger swallowtails flickered
yellow and black
from bloom to bloom.
He said, this must have been
the front room, you can still see
the hearth stones under the dirt.
She peered at the stones
he exposed with the toe
of his shoe, brushing off
a thin sandy layer of soil.
Heartstones? how sad and beautiful,
why did they call them that?
is it the the color?
it looks like old blood.
Hearth stones, not heart stones!
but I like your word better
because this was the heart of the house.
oh. I thought you said...
yeah. You heard the spirit,
I was just accessing my mental dictionary.
What would you call that crooked old tree over there?
Uh. apple tree. I don't know if it is,
I just want it to be, 'cuz I like apples.
What is it? do you know?
-Apple, of course!, guess these folks
liked them too. Must be more
than a hundred years old.
Still flowering. We should come
back in the fall and taste the fruit.
-Yes! She's ancient like me.
-Well I still like your fruit.
He laid his hand along her cheek
Where the skin was as soft as old velvet.
She said, I want to sketch her.
and these daffodils.
-And the heartstones?
-Of course. You know i must be
getting hard of hearing or something,
last night I heard on the news
something about a swarm of tomatoes
that had hit some town in the midwest.
and I was trying to imagine what
could cause that before I realized
that they meant tornados and...
what are you laughing at?
You. I love how your mind works.
oh? You don't think i'm crazy?
Totally. In the best possible way.
She unpacked her sketchbook
and set out her watercolors.
He walked over to the tree
gazed up into the branches.
-I don't believe it! There's
an apple still on this tree.
Somehow it lasted through the winter.
-Is that unusual?
-Very. it should have fallen months ago.
-It must have been waiting for us.
-You think so?
-Yes. bring it to me.
He plucked the apple from the branch.
It was still smooth and firm,
streaked with shades of red and yellow
and somehow heavier than he would have thought.
-Want the first bite?
-No, let's bite together.
So he held it between them,
their faces an apple's width apart
and they bit into the fruit
gazing into each others eyes
as the sweet juice ran over their chins.
They staggered and grabbed onto
each other's waist as the day darkened
like a solar eclipse and they sagged to the ground
When they opened their eyes,
it was bright afternoon again.
-What happened? what was that? he said.
-Magic.
-You think?
- Yes, how do you feel?
-Good. very good. Yes. like i'm twenty. Is it possible?
-Me too. What happened to our clothes?
I don’t know, but you know what I want to do?
Yes, I do.
