Memory Rain

The wind is beaded with rain

Like the flutter of a handkerchief against the face

Bringing to you the lover’s pain.

You love it

For you love the lover’s pain

Some moist gray face from dim distant time

Swims into memory like an obsolescent refrain

And you get wet, and yourself an aching substance.

The Problem of Number

Three of us sat together,
Chatting and laughing.
We felt a kind of rift developing,
Showing, opening up
A fissure in our cohesion.

Two against one, a little amused;
One against two, a little aggressive.
A pair of glances against a lonely one
Wayfaring, lost and pregerine
Looking for a mate in equal desperation.

A third in relationship is always troublesome,
We thought together.
The loner thought,
Perhaps there should be
One, two, four, or how about more!

A Sculpture of Our Time

"Crazy," said she,
"Do you mean me?"
A dark mood came over the two.

Eyelids slid down
Like fine silk of milk
Over her watery convexities
Like the curtain fall on a parting scene.

Eyelids rose like folded drapery
Such as was carved on classical stone
Such as Rodin had done his kiss
To bring life and bliss to lifeless stone.

Their sharp words like fine chisel cuts
Chipped away the veneer of the overspent words
Showing now the true image of love.