The Grudge
you retain
your luster
like a pearl
on an ocean shelf,
undisturbed,
protected
in your crypt,
the icy water
preserving
your power, polishing
your poison,
positing
your pain,
anticipating
the moment
I will snare you
in my emotional net,
fish you
from your cloister
with my hurt,
pry open
your hypnotics
and reveal you
for the imposter
you have always
been,
but you shall have
no such
satisfaction
The Literary Agent at Work
The manuscript was scintillating,
a jewel rich and
complex
with a tight plot
woven like silk
elevated,
sublime,
characters who leapt
from the pages,
so real
readers would set a place for them
at the dinner table.
The setting was lush,
mystic,
brooding,
and sang like sunshine,
curated symbols,
lyric language,
dripping with honeyed nuance,
perfectly paced,
intriguing,
enthralling,
captivating.
But she had a raging headache that day,
hungover from her cousin’s engagement party
on Long Island that began as a Bloody Mary brunch
and morphed into a late-night bon fire
confession session,
her inbox now stuffed like a proverbial Thanksgiving turkey,
her temples throbbing with regret,
cotton mouthed,
nose runny,
shin throbbing from a collision with a glass coffee table
during a game of champagne-fueled
after midnight charades.
So, the query,
carefully crafted,
breezy,
informative,
sincere,
seemed to scream at her like a banshee
in that Colin Farrell movie.
She tried to focus her bleary eyes
on the requisite first ten pages
—as if one can judge an entire novel that way—
marvelous in their classic unfurl,
flowing like a British brook,
the heroine
dancing with ephemeral joy
across the pages,
whispering, her eyes
speaking volumes,
when suddenly
the lost weekend
erupted into her throat,
she punched delete,
and sent a modern classic,
bestselling,
seminar-worthy
novel,
someone’s life’s achievement,
his self-identity,
his destiny
into a cyber cemetery
to linger among the other
masterpieces
that would never
brighten the world.
The Last Day of Innocence
She snuggles
Her nose in my arm
To affirm my stature
As the center of her universe
Do I want some sassafras tea?
Or a mound of blackberry cobbler
Still hot enough to melt ice cream?
We could frolic in the yard,
Alongside the tangerine daylilies,
Barefoot and free of all encumbrances
Or stroll to Jordan’s Pond and skip stones,
“Anything your little heart desires.”
She scoops me up
And swings me by my skinny arms,
Her wide smile exposing her gold tooth,
The folds of her dress fluttering in the September swell
Her magical laugh wrung dry of her painful past
Fluid in this moment of preternatural glory,
Of innocence as pale as my skin,
Completely oblivious to the roaring overhead
Black coughs trailing through the clouds
In a downward spiral
The news bulletin on the transistor radio
Muffled by their roar
As she giggles,
Pushes her face into my scrawny chest,
And sighs
Her green eyes as big as planets
Her voice cotton soft
As the menace slices through the sapphire sky,
Her arms surround me
But no avail
Grace
soar,
oh near-forgotten sister,
into the vastness
of a world
enmeshed in violence
provocation
and disparity
washed clean
sanitized
and sanctified
for the task.
diffuse your spirit
ubiquitous
in the hoary air
among the misbegotten,
the miscreant,
the miserable,
like pollen
engendering life
in the breath of air
o’erspread like buttery sunshine
a wave blanketing the shore
re-baptizing
so that we might reclaim ourselves
and be spared
the wrath
