Two Julys

Two summers past I heard you leaving

softly stepping so as not to wake me.

The room was dark and full of you

and dread that clutched at all of me.

Instinct arrived at three a.m.

to the sound of flung locks

click of a clock,  breath exiting

sharply from an empty room.

I curled in the dark, eyes squeezed

shut, a child again at forty-eight.

It was then the door re-opened

you strode back, gathered me up

as if knowing, kissed me long and hard. 

Only then did you go fully, loudly

in defiance of the fact that you had to.

I was left alone swathed in night -

transforming back into woman.

Carnival

Few can see to the end of the tunnel of love the entry beckons heart-shaped
framing an empty void had it been labeled “HauntedHouse” half the fair-goers
would politely decline citing the sudden need for candy floss the brave
would clamber into the small cars expecting to emerge from the other side
half out of their minds

anticipating that somewhere along the line a man in a mask taunting
a chain saw would roar into the moment or that severed arms and heads
would drop lifeless from the sky fingerless toothless

There would be screaming -
and plenty of it

How then, did she coax you into the tunnel?
You - with the logical mind, practical life?

Did she look at you with her goal-post eyes?
Calculate possibilities into tiny fractions,
subtractions, additions?

Did the car rattle and shake as you clasped hands and entered as fearless
as the guests in the Haunted House? Did she kiss you with her mouth open
as the tunnel gaped, swallowing you quickly?

Cobweb hair, goose-bump flesh, a strange sensation filling your belly
your heart talking in beats assuring your mind

No sign of severed arms, heads, or men with chainsaws.
No indication that the ride was faulty.
No chance of a refund at the other end.
Just the creak and sway of the car,
teetering precariously on the edge
of something unseen.

The mind a blank a magic realism painting where the grass is too green
the sky too blue her red dress too perfectly creased see through in the sunlight
nobody mentioned the tunnel of love would be so narrow lonely dark the fifty
percent chance of emerging as two instead of one but you knew it would feel good
so good to get lost in there for even a little while.

When the ride finally came to a stop, you reeled out of the car as if emerging
from a fighter plane that turned upside-down with a G8 force the bile rising
in your throat but you swallowed it back denying the need for help your legs
wobbly and unstable she was no longer holding your hand
The crowd stared as if you were a freak in the big tent and you tred to smile
put on your best front your mask dripping with the sweat of denial

She was no longer holding your hand

Always Ride a Horse on your Birthday

Did Hitler Eat Eggs

Perhaps he preferred the art of poached

over the simple act of scrambled, admired

the precision required in timing their quick

ascension to the top of enthusiastic bubbles,

slightly runny centers wobbling as they slid

across his black and white plate, a side of burnt

toast to mop up the spill, washed down by a glass

of unspoiled apple juice.  On the table a vase

of closed Edelweiss, one pinched and tucked

behind his Eva’s ear.  As he stepped off to work

Could he hear her humming

oblivious to the scream of the plate

as she scraped away his leftovers?