The Reader’s Loft
Black and white cat
Laps from a tipped cup on the floor.
A cat who sips wine, my kind of animal.
Some nodding nuns
grey angels lean in to listen
bestowing solitude with averted eyes.
The spider poet
writes love poems--
blood red moon hovers over his night.
The strumming guitar poet
with hordes of gods
reminds us
all things pass.
carrier pigeons the same
for no one's eye is on the sparrow.
The honey cat peers
out the doorway into a bleak world beyond
wondering why we would ever venture
from such comfort of this place.
Beckoning books, mirrors, hiding spaces
pillow throne for one cat under a lamp.
What could we bring for these reigning felines?
The soft blur of the emcee's voice
rounding us in
As if her job of herding poets
Is a genetic predisposition.
The proprietors hovering
Assure us for this time, time has paused
With no delete button,
metaphors murmuring in the loft.
One writer thanks us for adopting her.
We settle in as the sleet pounds--
shivers of ice plink against the windows
but here, we are huddled
as we prod the ashes, urge embering words.
Flight of the Red Pickup
These two men
from disparate places
Mexico, Guatemala
pressing with steel will
survive
killer desert heat
river of fears
concertina wire
border authorities:
survive, survive
they find homes in northern places
make it to american ice cream and debt
promises to keep
broken seams they fill with tar
survive
converge in a red pickup
what stresses brought them
to this moment
a May Day call
they did not hear
a thunderous shudder
the steel falls slowly
like children's toys
survive
giving them time to think
their journeys
what was left behind
what they had yearned
did they speak of their families
as they careened over the edge of the bridge
did they pray
did they have time
fighting for air
in frigid water
will their names survive:
Alejandro Herna'ndez Fuentes
Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera
...survive.
Three time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, Carol Lee is a retired college professor, former librarian in a log cabin found in the north woods of Wisconsin, and a former volunteer EMT. Her works appear in numerous anthologies including the Root River Poets' Penguin Press's Imagining America. Her most recent chapbook is available from Cyberwit Press, "When Wilding Returns."