3 Poems  

Sold Out, Discontinued

"The man who will not when he may shall have not when he
would."
           -- from The Legend of Robin & Makyne




My new lover was making coffee when you knocked at the door.
Those (often kissed) gray eyes of yours revealed your pain
As you tried to claim the present
I offered long ago.



So sorry.
I'm out of that model.
And I'm not making any more.



The man who accepted
the last of my unique inventory
is overwhelmed by the value,
unrestrained with his praise.



So I've decided not to repeat the offer.



Because of five o'clock biscuits
that weren't acknowledged,
beauty that passed unobserved,
wounds that never healed,
love that wasn't made.



And because of
that man in the kitchen making coffee
that man throughout the house speaking love
that man everywhere building a new life
with my now Discontinued Product.



But  I hear there's a sale down the street.




Vicki Goldsberry Colker
October 23, 1980;
May 30, 1996.





Great Expectations



Mama wasn’t Miss Havisham,
But I understood the expectations
When (in fifth grade) she signed my book:


“Ten years hence you’ll be sitting high
Married to a very rich guy.
Your motto:  A ring on every finger.”


I wasn’t.  I didn’t.  It’s not.


Deceived by Teensville, she dreamed I’d marry Opie,
Armed me with dance,  piano, baton, skating ---
Charm school and modeling for insurance ---
All the essential skills for Man Catching.


Moon-burned, I plunged into my studies,
Grew expert in feather boa, lipstick and Wonderbra,
Smiling scorn at their auctioned affections:
The Desired and Dangerous Vintage.


What Mama didn’t count on, what I didn’t know?
The sky of desire
The scent of loneliness
The shattering of my heart.



Vicki Goldsberry Colker
April 3, 1998



Respiration



I have known you twenty years,
treasured your laugh, your stoic charm.


Today you are framed in black,
Bruised,
Your light stolen.
You have been receipted and released.


My best friend was divorced today.
   It was not enough.


After all this unruly sadness,
the feverish spinning,
the theatrical goodbyes,
remember your knowing power.


You did not break:
You dismantled the lock.


You’re breathing air again.


Vicki Goldsberry Colker