I’ve two poems published in Rat’s Ass Review. Sarah Russell and Mary Rohrer-Dann have poems there as well.

ANOTHER SPRING
 
And in the end I knew
you as well as anyone could—
and that hardly at all.
 
Is that what we
mean by wisdom?
The kind acquired
 
with the years?
Today the English roses
you planted so long ago
 
have conspired to bloom
as one—
the well-wrought flowers
 
coloring the quarter acre
like Matisse gone mad.
What a magic to share—
 
if only I could.
Had you some grand scheme
for the planting?
 
I never thought to ask.
I sit in the afternoon
sun and open myself
 
to memory.
But what comes is colorless,
and I settle instead
 
for the pitched squeals
of the children next door.
Alive with their imaginations.
 
 
COLLOCATION
 
I bumped into him
at the commuter terminal
at Dulles.
He hadn’t changed much.
 
His name was Artie
but we called him Jack—
since Junior High
he was pinned at the hip
 
with the Annette
we knew as Jill.
As a matter of fact
our chance encounter
 
was less surprising
than his Jill-less-ness.
Where was she?
I longed to ask
 
but hadn’t the nerve.
Jack and Jill
did all things together
from the time they were 12
 
to the time they left
for a New England
Law School that wasn’t
Yale or Harvard.
 
But there she was
walking down the concourse
towards us—
the big smile
 
I remember from forever
still on her face.
She was always
a pleasure to see.
 
It wasn’t until
I shouted Jill
that I realized
it wasn’t her.
 
Just some pale copy
stamped out of old plates.
Jack offered no explanation,
just a long-winded account
 
of how he came to sales.
After, I shook his hand
and said with an odd sense of loss,
“Good to see you, Arthur.”