3 POEMS
When George Took Me to Greece
Jet-lagged and hung-over, we climbed the rough old road.
A black boulder jutted onto the path and George said,
“That's Socrates' Rock."
I stopped when my lover spoke, startled out of tangled thoughts,
touched the stone, then leaned against it,
looked up and to the east and gasped.
The Acropolis, just there, undid me.
The setting sun lit the hill
and golden temples floated
above the shadowed slope.
My back against the ancient
teaching rock, I dissolved.
LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING
If you think by your death you have left me alone,
to pine, to regret, to watch cable tv, you're wrong.
At bedtime I wear a new black lace gown,
and arrange myself to advantage
on sheets finer than any we shared.
I’ve left the back door open.
I believe I thrum. I hear
his step and then we begin.
He attends to that place
below my ears, knows how
to rub and nip. There is time for my breasts,
time for him to stoke me, each inch
until my supple back arches, reaches, pleads,
demands his weight. We twist, turn, lift,
sate, shout, pound pillows, laugh.
Then something, a noise?
I wake, on my side of our quiet bed,
my short white hair mussed, our gray cat
stretched along my pale, restless thigh.
The Dice are Not To Blame
Ted swam far from shore with a bar of lead.
He loved it, you see, until he drowned dead.
Mick had a trick of giving his money
to heartless bosoms that called him honey.
Sharon kept caring for drinkers and dopers
gamblers and cheaters and whiners and mopers.
Benny saw double and never could tell
which one had substance and which was a shell.
Mick, Benny, Sharon, and poor dead Ted
had luck that sucked they frequently said.
I didn’t agree and suggested instead
that they didn't have to sink
they could listen to me,
and let go of their lead
when they swam in the sea.
