High School Classmates of Mine
Growing Up In A Small Town—1949

I stop to watch the Buck brothers' Ford
rip through the winter darkness
shrouding our town's main street,
drab as hand-me-down clothes;

and savor like sugar's sweetness
the lingering echo of their car
speeding away even faster than
the few other cars that dare
to break the speed limit
               while I remain
trapped in a narrow-minded town
that's anti-everything.  

Exploding with frustration, I want
to ride with the Bucks as their car
rattles the roadside houses
even if by midnight
they smash into a wall;

                  want it so much
I have to fight to convince myself
it is better to—someday
far from here—write
about this raging night.





Late Winter Thoughts


Tiring more easily now,
I settle in a chair
to watch another snow's
falling whiteness; and remember
how often  my life has pivoted
on happenings briefer than
a branched bird taking flight...
as on the glistening autumn day
I strolled across the quad
and saw—hurrying out
of the library—a young woman
cradling too many books
in her cardigan-covered arms.
Her footsteps brisk with purpose,
her smile caught by the sunlight,
she walked toward where I had stopped,
and I knew even before
I offered her my "Hello,"
knew right to my fingertips
I loved this sun-golden woman
and would marry her forever.

-previously published in REACH POETRY