ON THE FREE FAKE TROLLEY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE

I am ashamed

That I am mostly disgusted

By two fortyish lovers

I scrutinized on the city's free fake trolley.

She scoured out his nose and ears

Over and over, devotedly,

Wiping the goo on her shorts.

Did she judge the goo to be his gift

Or at least her exemplary achievement?

She is as focused as a  deluxe surgeon.

Her not-ugly face never gets bored.

His head relaxes on her steadfast lap.

In his near-ugliness he is smiling.

The process lasts throughout the ride.

He also does not get bored.

She is the mother cat whose job

Is to preciously clean her kitten without stop;

Or is this vision

A sort of Pieta'?

Are they utterly in love,

In love above most other lovers?

Are they so free they can do such stuff in public;

Or are they bizarrely unashamed?

I devoted myself to staring:

Can my disgust be discussed?

Or do I admire such ugh-ness?

The clothing of the unwary  pair

Verged on being rags.

Will they be inexplicable icons

In my brain?

           © Stephen Margulies, 2019

CAT Trolley, courtesy of nbc29.com

Natural Love

Great bursts of chemical oozings

slide through ventricles

and disperse,

unhinge my sternum

and part my lungs

so my heart can push

at the thin skin of my chest.

My cranium becomes elastic, inflates,

its crown swelling - 

a transparent formation of overhead eyestalks -

giving me dizzying heightened sight.

My brain swims in its extra space.

My eyeballs bob back

and bounce off my

frozen-taut tongue.

I hear each deafening slide of cloth,

each rock-grinding foot shuffle

and each cyclonic breath-breeze.

I can hear your hair growing.

I can smell your hair growing.

The veins of my limbs

sprout bristles like crystals,

that sting then leave a numb ache.

Arms weakly waver and sway,

palms glowing warm

emitting waves of wet essence,

while cool fingers wake into

novel functions as antennae,

extending to sense airborne clues,

seeking any molecule of you.

My feet have grown suction cups.

I'm vacuumed to the spot.

It is all so lovely. 

And how I long for more.

           © Laura Seale,  2019

Jellyfish, photo by CarbonNYC
from Wikimedia Commons

Note Taken About My Body (After a trip to Sam's Club)

My left side leads my right side

and it has always been this way,

from, I suspect, mother’s womb

until, I expect, I find the grave.

My left foot anchors my right foot

each time I begin to walk steps.

Then I feel it solid on the ground

before I forward shift from the left.

As left hand hooks it, right hand plays

note found first before pluck or strum.

From this arrives one more tune

likely that again I sing and hum.

But so you say my left ear

hears a bit better than my right.

Well no surprise do I feel

always left carried the work and fight.

And from the womb to grave I go.

Being me requires this will be so.

© Dennis Wright,  2012

"Walking Man" by Alberto Giacometti

My Rebeccas

In my youth there was Rebecca standing on a hill of snow.

Other boys fought for attention but her smile was just for me.

The frozen city was our playground.

Our exploits were the stuff of legend,

Until our friendship faded into time.

In my teens there was Rebecca reading poetry in class.

She was kind to me when others found it amusing to be cruel.

We would talk until the break of dawn

And exchange desires and secrets,

Until our romance faded into time.

Away at school there was Rebecca studying rare works of art.

Wild, intense, and passionate and interested in me.

Our days were filled with ecstasy.

At night we dreamt about the future,

Until our liaison faded into time.

In my middle years there was Rebecca working in a crowded office.

Her energy and beauty sliced through monotony with ease.

We were partners, friends, and lovers

Fusing intimacy and insight,

Until our marriage faded into time.

In the end there was Rebecca living with me in a home.

All her trials and tribulations made her as strong as she was wise.

We laughed and cried through all our stories

And cherished moments spent together,

Until we both faded into time.

© Ben Siegan, 2019

Optomotor

I’m watching a creature who watches a screen

a watchman who watches and knows what he’ll mean

when they ask and he tells, and he tells and they ask

about purpose that’s pickled in each daily task

And the music of quicksand like metal will melt

when the crucibles bellow the furies they felt 

They say it’s for knowledge, but knowing is cheap

I can know the whole world if I get enough sleep

A moron can learn all past works of the dead

and still in the present have shit in his head

To understand anything is to understand less

so damn all deductions and let’s make a guess

or profess our stupidity, straight and sincere

find clarity clearly in all that’s unclear

So, do I believe this? Eh, I don’t know

It could be that today is especially slow

I oft throw off caution and except what I mean

when I’m watching a creature who’s watching a screen

© James Cole, 2019

The Gloves

I am a frustrated compulsive shopper.

Without regard for the announced Christmas sale,

I buy a pile of colorful gloves to soothe myself.

Gray woolen gloves,

blue dress gloves,

green leather gloves,

red rubber gloves,

clear surgical gloves,

white wedding gloves,

and a couple of mittens.

I lost my gray gloves in my American history class, 

when I grasped that Cherokee has not always been a brand name,

but women and children sent away in winter with their bare hands.

I lost my blue dress gloves when my boyfriend married my best friend.

They honeymooned in Paris and adopted an abandoned child.

I lost my green leather gloves in a hospice

where my dying father told me that he didn’t love me.

I lost my red rubber gloves in my new boyfriend’s kitchen

when it became clear that he treasured me as a cook.

I lost my clear surgical gloves in the operating room 

when I decided to stop hurting dogs.

I kept my white wedding gloves 

because my granddaughter loves to play with them,

and I gave her the mittens to keep her hands warm

because this is the only thing 

I can do to make her happy on this cold day.

© Helen Kanevsky, 2018

ANTORINI luxury gloves,
from Wikimedia Commons

St. Agatha Waits for Peter

The National Gallery, Edinburgh, 2015

It’s true. I did not need 

them, the mounds of flesh 

where my children should have 

fed, their milkteeth nibbling 

cracked skin, suckling little drops of 

blood with every gulp of milk. 

Still, as I lie bleeding, 

my breasts carried away in a bowl 

(perhaps given to a hungry dog)

I want them back. I send a prayer 

like a stumbling child to heaven. 

I wait in the blooming red.

           ©️  Ellie White, 2016

(First published by |tap| magazine, 2016)

The martyrdom of St. Agatha
by a follower of C. Welcome
from Wikimedia Commons