BERGMAN’S SUMMER WITH MONIKA

At work, she’s a game guys play between loading boxes, her home, cramped, noisy.

She and her lover sail under a high arch into an archipelago,

summer brief, a match blown out. Food gone, she returns

to the mainland with child.  To the dark. Winter.  Bored,

she looks for men. Sun, jailed in snow– others raise her daughter.

MOONFLOWER ON THE PORCH

I dream I’m with another man. Who I meet in the Boscov’s furniture section on a bubblegum-colored couch.

I say I already have a guy.  He says so what?  Startled, I wake up,

you still sleeping.  Life gets normal again.  Cats.  Coffee. The Dave Clark Five a needle drop away. A late summer moonflower’s ghost on the porch.

PESSOA MEETS WHITMAN ON HEAVEN’S PATIO

Good evening, friend.  How long have you been here?  Over 100 years? I understand you.  And misunderstand as much.

We’re comrades. Didn’t we sleep together once, share a dream, ecstatic, scary?  I wanted it to return, but you were revising in New Jersey.

Have you seen God yet? I ... Read More »]]>

BERGMAN’S SUMMER WITH MONIKA

At work, she’s a game
guys play between loading boxes,
her home, cramped, noisy.

She and her lover sail
under a high arch
into an archipelago,

summer brief,
a match blown out.
Food gone, she returns

to the mainland
with child.  To the dark.
Winter.  Bored,

she looks for men.
Sun, jailed in snow–
others raise her daughter.

MOONFLOWER ON THE PORCH

I dream I’m with another man.
Who I meet in the Boscov’s
furniture section
on a bubblegum-colored couch.

I say I already have a guy.  He says
so what?  Startled, I wake up,

you still sleeping.  Life
gets normal again.  Cats.  Coffee.
The Dave Clark Five a needle drop away.
A late summer moonflower’s
ghost on the porch.

PESSOA MEETS WHITMAN ON HEAVEN’S PATIO

Good evening, friend.  How long
have you been here?  Over 100 years?
I understand you.  And
misunderstand as much.

We’re comrades.
Didn’t we sleep together once,
share a dream, ecstatic,
scary?  I wanted it to return,
but you were revising in New Jersey.

Have you seen God yet?
I hear he never even changes
the ash trays.  I saw,
I think, Peter shaking
hands with some visitors,
a politician working the crowd.

What?  You miss Long Island?
I kicked Lisbon’s sorry ass,
then fed it the best oranges.  I see
someone waits to speak to you,

handsome too.  I snuck your book in,
have eternity to read it.
I’ll never get to the end.

A DOZEN YEARS

I’ll be 70, you 72.  I’m picturing us
on the porch, cats who will probably
outlive us vigilant for moths.
After you say you’ve never found
the perfect place to plant tomatoes,
I say I’ve never found the perfect place
to plant dahlias.  Let’s stop this

looking for perfect places, the moment
a butterfly flexing on a purple buddleia,
then flying off.  We’re still sitting.

**

Image: Moa Karlberg, from the series “The Closest to Heaven.” Curated by Marisa Espínola of Espacio en Blanco (more).