January 2017
After teaching at a college in South Florida for thirty years, I retired, and my wife and I have traveled around the country, and moved twice in the past two years. Now that we are settled, we are looking forward to exploring our new city and making new friends. Some of my poems have appeared recently in such journals as The Broken Plate, The Comstock Review, Exit 7, The Lake, and Third Wednesday. Amsterdam Press published a chapbook of my poems entitled The Arboriculturist in 2010. Check out my author's page on Facebook or go to my blog at http://www.michaelminassian.com.
Postcard from Key West
I’ve been thinking about you
the whole damn ride
down from Miami on US 1
in the long tunnel of fog
and rain, through the Upper
and Lower Keys and over
the seven thousand mile bridge
past the seven thousand white cranes
that seemed to shadow my car
and skirt between the palm trees,
mangroves, and the flat green water
that merges the Gulf of Mexico
and the Atlantic Ocean,
as if it were really two separate bodies
of water that should know
their own boundaries
like you saying you wanted your own space:
so, tell me, how do you “own” space.
I finally got down to this hotel,
where the only room left had a busted a/c
and last night I heard about a dozen
roosters three hours before dawn
and now I’m sitting in a Cuban café
drinking café con leche
and thinking about calling you,
but, no, I don’t forgive you,
just in case you ever ask,
so I’m headed for the beach
this morning where I hope the mosquitoes
won’t find me and I can watch the waves
roll in and roll out, and I suddenly realize
that love is like the Overseas Highway:
sometimes the road doesn’t go on anymore –
you reach the end of the continent
and the only thing in front of you is the blank sea
and behind the same plunging pavement
pointing back in the opposite direction
while a drunken hurricane lurks by the side of the road.
Originally published in The Main Street Rag, 2012.
Postcard from Key West
I’ve been thinking about you
the whole damn ride
down from Miami on US 1
in the long tunnel of fog
and rain, through the Upper
and Lower Keys and over
the seven thousand mile bridge
past the seven thousand white cranes
that seemed to shadow my car
and skirt between the palm trees,
mangroves, and the flat green water
that merges the Gulf of Mexico
and the Atlantic Ocean,
as if it were really two separate bodies
of water that should know
their own boundaries
like you saying you wanted your own space:
so, tell me, how do you “own” space.
I finally got down to this hotel,
where the only room left had a busted a/c
and last night I heard about a dozen
roosters three hours before dawn
and now I’m sitting in a Cuban café
drinking café con leche
and thinking about calling you,
but, no, I don’t forgive you,
just in case you ever ask,
so I’m headed for the beach
this morning where I hope the mosquitoes
won’t find me and I can watch the waves
roll in and roll out, and I suddenly realize
that love is like the Overseas Highway:
sometimes the road doesn’t go on anymore –
you reach the end of the continent
and the only thing in front of you is the blank sea
and behind the same plunging pavement
pointing back in the opposite direction
while a drunken hurricane lurks by the side of the road.
Originally published in The Main Street Rag, 2012.
©2016 Michael Minassian
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