Roadside Poppies

Roadside poppies
Made adamantine
By last night’s rain
Shone in this morning’s sun
Like Maureen’s fresh-painted toenails.

Not About You

Sunny day in early spring/late winter
I’m driving with the windows down
Singing along with my iPod Shuffle
And not thinking about you.
The Salsa music doesn’t bring to mind
The Latin dance lessons you said would be perfect
For getting to know someone…else.
The sun’s heat doesn’t remind me of when
You got drunk in Spain and between dry heaves
Tried to sleep with the hotel maid.
The sky is not the blue of the cashmere sweater
You didn’t wear if we went somewhere together;
You preferred ratty logo shirts from jobs you’d lost years ago.
I’m driving along on this winter/spring day and the
Sun is shining and the
Music is blasting and the
Wind is ruffling my hair
And I’m not- heartless cheating bastard-
Thinking about you.

150

Birch trees extend their bare tan limbs
To catch the last rays of warmth thrown by the winter sun.

[In case you hadn’t guessed, this poem is titled “150” because it is the 150th poem posted to this blog. I’m open to other titles for it though; Drop me a comment and make a suggestion.]

It Tastes Like Progress

I remember tomatoes-
some of them lumpy-
Redly ripe, still warm from the sun.
Dirt crunching in my teeth because I managed a lick before
My mother whisked it away, into the house to wash it.
I grabbed another one and plunged my teeth into it;
The pulpy sweetness filling my mouth,
The tiny firm seeds between my teeth with the dirt;
I was eating summer.
Drizzly April day, I get tomatoes from Safeway.
Hothouse tomatoes: they’re cool and very clean,
Smooth, unblemished like Jessica’s skin after ProActiv.
The inside is pink, almost mealy;
The seeds nearly absent.
When I bite into it, it tastes like progress.

Calls

Sitting in my car,
Beside, the river,
Sipping a cup of coffee.
The sun glinting on the water was so lovely.
(The coffee was just a bit too milky.)
The silence- save the calls of the gulls and the sailing students-
Was so exquisite
I wanted to share it with someone else who’d appreciate it.
But if I called or texted somebody,
There would be questions and calls for payback:
Shouldn’t you be looking for a job?
How do you have time to sit and look at the river?
If I stop what I’m doing and come, do you promise you’ll help me catch up?
So I thought
And sipped my coffee.
And, following some gentle quacking back to a family of ducks,
Decided there was no one I needed to call.