1. A Dream of Yellow
A thumbtack with a tiny handle
plastic shaped like a slender spool:
the pain when I stepped on the point told me
even a tough heel can be tender.
Last night in a dream from no-man’s-land
the yellow pushpin floating by
as if held in an unseen hand
affixed a sadness to the day.
We are canoeing on the Chickahominy
dogwood and wild roses glowing
along the dark and secret banks
your bright hair blowing in the sun.
Now we sit on the dock and ponder
why Carl kept pressing for an answer
and then pulled out when you said yes.
I say, “Carl is a fool and a heel.”
After the suicide and funeral
your sister sent me the small brooch
Carl gave you: a yellow ceramic rose.
I wore it in sorrow and rebellion.
Did you send the dream of the pin, breaking the law of silence death imposes?
Do you dream of the river and wild roses?
Will you shed light in another waking?
2. The Professor Sings of Love
Why was I drawn to my ex-wife the
attorney
and then to a beautiful virgin dean?
Even jogging they both outpaced me.
I drove from Penn to Sweetbriar
where I wooed Kate with my dad’s guitar
and the old ballad, “Katie Cruel.”
Why couldn’t she just keep saying NO?
Entangled in wedding dates and doubts
I began to dream of flypaper.
Then when the great job came through
it was for her, not me.
“New England autumns together—”
she murmured in my uneasy arms.
Already I felt winter on the way.
Ever the good sport, Kate responded
I was witty and wise, and in truth she felt
a bit overage for troths and trousseaus.
Women, like teeth, should be strong
but not prominent.
After it felt safe, I wrote to her,
“The loss of you is killing me.”
But even in death she had to be first.