2 Poems  

TRICK OF LIGHT

The postcard's blue dolphins 
leap from the carefully scrawled text 

of a friend's fine print--a famous poet 
gone to the Tropics with my ex-, 

and another lady priest, platonic. 
He pens, "I'm basking  in 

recognition.  Skin-diving? 
I'm hooked!  Love, Bill." 

The sun tricks my vision--cantaloupe, 
rose.  It splatters the snow 

with blue shadows, pulp and seed. 
As the shadows and I retreat, 

we march past mailboxes, 
Illinois homes, whose 

white paint says, 
"Relax, be decent. 

Nothing is forever. 
Everything has limits." 

I have nothing 
to add. 

LETTER TO ROSE 



You take a fishing hook now--this 
tiny silver anchor, its barb 
filed smooth.  What is it like? 

You favor the turn beyond measure, 
the term itself, of the line, 
the momentary flick, 
crimson, the sounded word. 

You take the way a famous poet 
responds to praise:  he is just. 
He is a miniature mirror to his culture. 
Deflecting reflections of narcissism, 
without descending to false modesty-- 
he never actually said it was undeserved. 

You momentarily miss the leaves 
that have blown off the sumac, red in 
today's wind, a piece of the italics 
of astonishment, the way I treasure 
this blood beat, this pulsing guppy eye. 

Do you hear that snap, that hook, 
the end of the line's measure? 
See it now, stuck here 
in what's left of 
this bullish, bleeding ear.