Pens poised, room murmuring
with dusky lights,
we sit in the poetry café
clustered at round tables.
Velvety tongues of fire flap
from violet votive candles.
The almond-eyed, curly-haired,
bearded matchmaker balloons his arms,
parts them; many hands reach
for pages of verse raining like confetti.
Apprehension travels my life-line.
Maybe I fear the residue
of someone else’s vision
falling into my eyes.
Holding my breath,
I watch her press against the page
when a burly-chested sentence
from another poem leans too close.
She glimpses a G-string
limping up the small of his back—
glint, glimmer, glisten, gleam
on the band like four worn horseshoes.
Calm drifts over me when I see her
in the crib of soft fingers.
She smiles at a cowboy poet
with pale eyes and skin.
A big ADVERB medallion hangs
from his long neck; he playfully chants
every tomorrow, seldom soon,
finally, my darling girl.
The night stretches like a long highway
before she returns to me, lumbering rhythms
balanced, awkward sentences fluid,
letters properly ordered in each word.
With the soft blade of my pen,
I delicately slice away the last bit of noise
so I can hear my poem singing.
|