Author: Wayne L. Miller

Rachel And Amanda

Mark Fogarty

Rachel and Amanda walk side by side.
You could take them for twins.
Rachel and Amanda walk side by side,
In tune like fine engines.

Rachel and Amanda are two of a kind,
And it’s the first of a kind to be.
Their skin makes olives thirst for sun
In sunny Sicily.

They’re tall but not too tall,
Sturdy without being wide.
They improve the tepid air
When they walk side by side.

Rachel and Amanda smile at babies,
And sometimes they smile at me.
Their hair flows in streams that know
The courses of geometry.

As flowers have their day to bloom,
It’s Bloomsday for these two.
And if I could I’d have them stay
Rejoicing in my view.

Blog – http://redwheelbarrowpoets.org (155 followers)
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/RWBPoets (288 likes)
Twitter – https://twitter.com/RWBPoets (71 followers)

Janet Kolstein

A Raw and Burnt Umber Bird (With Buff Titanium)

nestles inside the second lower case a
of a cut-out sign that spells
materials
across the front of an art store
in Paramus,
off Route 4,
when gloves have come off
with the stirrings of spring
which should bring
a feeling of hope,
you know,
that thing with feathers.*

* “Hope is the Thing With Feathers,” by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Blog – http://redwheelbarrowpoets.org (151 followers)
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/RWBPoets (287 likes)
Twitter – https://twitter.com/RWBPoets (70 followers)

Valentina

Mark Fogarty

The most beautiful woman I ever met,
Her name was Valentina.
Twenty-four, from the Greek islands,
Which one I don’t remember.

Married at 14, she had four children,
And when she smiled there were spots on her teeth,
Decalcified, not enough milk maybe.

Every beauty has a mole, an imperfection.
Welcome to American beauty.
Your kids can have enough to eat.

She washed my hair in the barber’s chair.
Her hands were sun and growing vines.
Greek hands wring fruit from stone, tell signs.
She anointed me with oil for my hair.

Blog – http://redwheelbarrowpoets.org (145 followers)
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/RWBPoets (283 likes)
Twitter – https://twitter.com/RWBPoets (71 followers)

Why I love chocolate

Claudia Serea

Because it starts with a small white flower
in the Theobroma cacao tree
whose name means “food for the gods.”

Because chocolate is old and well-traveled,
and cocoa beans were used as currency
by the Aztecs.

Because it comes from the plumed serpent,
Quetzalcoatl, a god cast away
for sharing chocolate with humans,

and shelling the cocoa beans from the pod
mimics removing human hearts
in sacrifice.

Because it’s fermented, roasted, and bitter,
and, like life, can cover surprises
and liquor.

Because 50 million people around the world
depend on it.

Because it thins the blood
and soothes the mood.

Because Montezuma
and Casanova consumed it.

Because I grew up not having it,
wanting it,
and waiting for it in line for hours
as if it were a holy relic.

Because it’s forbidden.

Because it stands for love,
food for this goddess,

and blooms in my mouth,
a sweet dark flower.

Blog – http://redwheelbarrowpoets.org (145 followers)
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/RWBPoets (281 likes)
Twitter – https://twitter.com/RWBPoets (67 followers)

Carriage Horses

Richard Greene

lined up at Central Park South,
waiting with equine patience,
or melancholy,
heads hanging,
daydreaming perhaps
of racing across the steppes,
powering a chariot in the Hippodrome
or, splendidly caparisoned,
bearing the flower of knighthood
into the lists,
now waiting for tourists
at 59th and 6th.

Blog – http://redwheelbarrowpoets.org (142 followers)
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/RWBPoets (279 likes)
Twitter – https://twitter.com/RWBPoets (64 followers)