THE MAN O WAR
Clear blue blown glass on the
sand. She’s immune to it. She can sit on the rock in the water that buoys her.
Let her love handles be lapped by the waves.
OVERTON PARK
The day was unusually sunny.
Blades of grass fluttered in the wind and didn’t notice when she drew back from
his touch. Their photograph buried itself in the grass. The circle of kids
murmured. The big red-headed boy on acid squinted at the sun that winked from
behind a tree in a forest. In the forest a circus was happening. From the woods
came the parade of freaks. From the woods came the smell of hay, shit, and
sugar.
THE NEW OLD COUPLE
She asks him if he likes to work
puzzles. When he says no she laughs and says she guesses she’ll have to do them
by herself on the card table. Her face is pink in the white ophthalmologist
waiting room. She talks, reads to him, tells him stories. She is his lover, his
sister, his neighbor. When they get in the car to leave it starts again.
— Joan Biddle