April 2017
Jeff Burt
jeff-burt@sbcglobal.net
jeff-burt@sbcglobal.net
When I was in college in Wisconsin, one winter I walked twenty-two miles in a light snow, unable to hitch a ride on the county roads. I arrived at my studio apartment with the whiskers above my upper lip frozen to the whiskers below my lip. There's a lesson there, but it still escapes me. I have published prose, too, in Per Contra, Amarillo Bay, and Atticus Review.
After-party
The last red light disappears from the street
and the neon green display of the clock
flashes twelve. We step on each other's feet
and bump hips in the cramped kitchen to block
each other's way, your hands happy to jab,
suds to sleeves, eyes weary, your rouge-less red
cheeks like embers left from the fire of gab,
the yarns with a yawn, the confessions plead.
You waltz a red towel, a toreador,
display the last plate to my plunging bull,
pull two forks and lance like a picador,
I stomp, I scratch, I give you an eyeful.
What enthralling time soap and china make--
You the virginal field, and I your rake.
Equilibrium
Memorial Day flag-flap, coroner
script a creamy white on the black bag
entombing a high school senior,
deputy wheeling a finger to wag
a signal for the tow truck’s screeching chain
to haul up the tree-split, abridged SUV.
No one and nothing drops a head to mourn.
Fly-buzz, cat-whine, jay—none with cry or plea.
Spiders spin rigorous webs to land
their prey, spew their rigorous gauze to cover
the dying cypresses orderly stand
as if bandaging wounds of a brother
in war, and even I plant with one hand
and yank the living out with the other.
After-party
The last red light disappears from the street
and the neon green display of the clock
flashes twelve. We step on each other's feet
and bump hips in the cramped kitchen to block
each other's way, your hands happy to jab,
suds to sleeves, eyes weary, your rouge-less red
cheeks like embers left from the fire of gab,
the yarns with a yawn, the confessions plead.
You waltz a red towel, a toreador,
display the last plate to my plunging bull,
pull two forks and lance like a picador,
I stomp, I scratch, I give you an eyeful.
What enthralling time soap and china make--
You the virginal field, and I your rake.
Equilibrium
Memorial Day flag-flap, coroner
script a creamy white on the black bag
entombing a high school senior,
deputy wheeling a finger to wag
a signal for the tow truck’s screeching chain
to haul up the tree-split, abridged SUV.
No one and nothing drops a head to mourn.
Fly-buzz, cat-whine, jay—none with cry or plea.
Spiders spin rigorous webs to land
their prey, spew their rigorous gauze to cover
the dying cypresses orderly stand
as if bandaging wounds of a brother
in war, and even I plant with one hand
and yank the living out with the other.
© 2017 Jeff Burt