Two Teen Girls

talk at a higher
and higher pitch
as they walk still faster

toward the excitement
of the two waiting boys
they like so much.





College Years
-for Emily-

It was our freshman year—at a play
rehearsal--that we first saw each other
and stopped at once to say, "Hello"...
at a party after the last performance,
our nuzzling words muted the noise

around us—till we left and parked
to watch the dark sky whiten...one day
our laughter made your right hand shake
while it held a--what device?--and tried
to curl my long eyelashes...alone

on New Year's Eve, we sipped champagne 
while we took turns impromptu-dancing
naked for each other— 
                               how could 
you let that classmate's stroking words
woo you to leave the unmapped island

our love lived on? and how could I
allow my anger to punish me
so many years by locking away
my memories of those brimming days
till now?

-previously published in The Chaffin Journal



Like Guests Who, even


though catered to,
finally bid "Good night"
to their party host:

the decades' good health
of some part of your body,
despite all your efforts,
decides to take its leave,

then the health of another
and another part— 
both, once quite reliable— 
abandon you too.

Then so does time.