Sharon Auberle Verse-Virtual 2016 July

July 2016

I am a lucky poet who gets to live on the Door County Wisconsin peninsula. I love trees, dachshunds, making music, and I make a mean red beans and rice. My poems have appeared in Earth's Daughters; Lilipoh; and Verse Wisconsin, among others, as well as a variety of anthologies. My poems and photos may be found at my website Mimi's Golightly Cafe.

On Mortality

Someone once close to me is dying.
We talk now and then, try to laugh
about people, times we knew,
our old bars and dancing places.
I don’t know, ever, what to say, but it seems
not to matter…he’s always happy
to hear from me and even though my tongue
stutters and stumbles and sometimes
wraps around itself, it’s okay.

Because he gets to try out this idea of dying
on me—try out strange words,
and over the phone, I’m safe.
He doesn’t see tears in my eyes,
the cringe when we talk of friends
and he says yeah, tell them hi for me (pause)
and so long…and I want to say oh please, no…

but I don’t, because maybe he needs
to hear those words from himself
so I swallow hard and listen
to him and imagine mighty choirs
tuning in the background, or maybe
some funky, low-down blues…

On the Last Leaf Falling from the Gingko Tree
For Sally P. 1945-2004

I didn't see it happen
but the leaf fell anyway
and I picked it up
to press in my book

I wasn't there when you died
but you did anyway
it was March and only brown
carpeted the ground

the yellow that you loved —
the color of your VW Bug
the Peace sign on your guitar
you couldn't see them anymore

but somewhere inside
I hope there was yellow
I hope there were showers
of gingko leaves raining down on you

like that day in the park
when we played
in a mound of the tiny fans
tossing them up in the air
your sidekick black dog
right there beside us

that day I didn't see how
for just a moment
you turned into light
but it was going to happen
anyway

On the Stillwater Banks
for R.L.

It was August, 1963
the night we first loved.
Slow river, hot moon,
music of the county fair
swirling around us in the night.
How like a movie playing
in my head…the soundtrack
what I said, what you whispered,
the plans we made for a life together.

It didn't last—the movie or the music
and suddenly the film speeds forward
to a small boy and me,
playing on a riverbank,
shoes lost in thick grass,
people speaking softly nearby
while we toss a ball,
marvel at green dragonflies
and tiny Chinese lanterns
escaped from someone's garden.

Your grandpa's favorite color was orange
I tell the boy, and we gather
handfuls of the papery pods,
me and this child of our blood,
as the river flows on
past the cemetery,
past the mourners
past us--small boy, aging woman

and I whisper to you—
we did good, old dear, didn't we?
the film now a still life— orange lanterns
and a bright blue ball scattered
on freshly mounded earth.

The Woman in My Head

won't leave me alone
she wants to have her say
about that day—
not the rainslick road
or the spinning motorcycle
not about how her body broke
but maybe just this:

how immense was the great moon
that morning shining in her window
how the bacon tasted at breakfast
the way rain silvered the leaves
and when it stopped
how the sun flared out
in a burst of orange fire

maybe she wants us to know
how soft was her lover's hair
the fragrance of his jacket—
like smoke and apples
how the last moment she knew was joy—
her face pressed into his warmth
arms wrapped so tightly about him
she never saw what was
hurtling into their lane

First publication on "The Woman" belongs to "The Lowdown:" an anthology edited by Robert Zoschke.
"Last Leaf" was previously published in the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets 2016 calendar.
©2016 Sharon Auberle