Dimples & Rust

what if you are the thimble? spend

most of your life in the sewing box

even though Mimsie mends

every day — who mends these days?

every curtain needs mending

she says & can’t find the cord to power

her machine — think of stitching heavy

curtains all by hand, upholstery needle

pricking your thimble-free thumb

the sewing box rattles with promise

remember me? the thimble cries

only a few stitches into the job & I’ll

be shiny as when I was born — stamped

furled, however thimbles are made

I’m a lowly thimble, the smallest size

if lucky, I’ll be borne on Mimsie’s

finger until she dies, mending

the hired man’s overhauls, the master’s

waistcoat, the Sunday dress

the cook wears to visit her mother

miles away in Chipping Sodbury

my dimples welcome your thrusts

bless all thimbles, keep us from rust

The Farmer in the Dell

it happened on Cape Cod back when Route 6

past Orleans was a long straight empty road

it was a hot day, end-of-season yellowed grass

stretching away in all directions, the blacktop

sticky where we stopped on the shoulder

spooked, we walked toward the young woman

standing in the road beside the truck, another car’s

nose buried in the nose of the truck, someone

in the car’s driver seat not moving, two children

still sitting on the truck’s front seat, screaming

we lifted the children out, sat them on our laps

broken glass pimpling their faces, the blood

tiny spots beginning to slide, we told them

they must sit still, not move, we began singing

about the farmer, the wife child nurse cow

we picked glass one splinter after another

their mother standing alone in the road

wringing her hands, no one spoke, we sang

ever so many songs — yankee doodle, row

your boat — from time to time the children smiled

I Loved You Best

I loved you best — we tried & failed — what if

today you would take my call, once more say yes 

walk away from your wife & well-earned rest

to take up again with me — I yearn in this quiet

nest without you, I pretend we could live it over

a parallel life, not be pulled apart by location

by ambition, our callow youth not ready to know

why & what we had & never would have again

in middle years sometimes we met, traitors

to our mates, rabid with desire, no regrets

afterward we would try to smile — the look

in your eyes when I left — once in another year

you died, to say I was bereft would scarcely

exaggerate, such loss has no measure

I pretend how we might have been today

old & grizzled until the end & still together

Floating Ruin

red sepulchre, red submarine pitched

slant in a bog, once sunken, now come

to ground, a pine bough arcs above

your forecastle swell, a rust-pillaged

wrought-iron gate pairs to your squared

stern, red mottled by time’s rain, port

side an open door mortal with light

exposes wind-splintered trees sprung

bent from earthwormed bodies’ lees

this portal spilling death falls sun

splotched kaleidoscopic in bottomland

water, salamander spawn, yellow weed

how many sailors breathed their last

what mechanism failed, or was it plague