Squirrel

The grey squirrel climbs
the metal wicker chairs
to reach the round white table top

Are you a friend?
I ask,
Or from the Florida tourist bureau?

But he looks at me
with an Iowa farmer's eyes
gazing across a tableau
of corn or soybean

I am his momentary harvest

He does not discern
that I am only drinking coffee
He does not know
that the pockets of my knapsack
aren't bulging with nuts or grain

He is filled with hope
a constant hunger
He chews on possibility
digests it whole
with every glance

Given a silo of corn
he would eat until drunk
until his legs disappeared
until he exploded

I sit here
a diabetic sipping
artificially sweetened coffee

I know his hunger
I have used it to drive
every lover from my life

I ate them
until I exploded

The squirrel has moved
perched like a charm
on the black rail that surrounds
this small lake
in the middle of Orlando

Higher still
the birds laugh at us both

Aunt

She limped into the cafe
her pumpkin-clad legs
performing their kimbo dance
of the stroke that left her smile ensnarled
her voice-box cluttered
by odd sensations
putting gravel where honey once flowed

But she kissed them all
the dyed blonde in the black turtleneck
the grand daughter without cunning
a pony-tailed cousin's husband in blue shirt
and magazine model slouch

Her broken grin was medicine
as she sat on the flowered sofa
(leaned over near toppling)
her attention to their ordinary tales
a wire to balance upon

Rising again, she tottered to a book case
each remembered title opened up to green images
imagined lovers wearing the faces of long dead friends
a literary wind
a storm of tears

She backs away
nearly loses her balance
as the weight of all that past
threatened her narrow future

Her grand nephew leans against a sofa arm
his chin balanced on respectfully folded fingers

She falls heavily next to him
puts her hand on his back
part comfort to him
part for herself

She glances around
her hungry grin chewing on the food of her family
and they in turn
wrap her in cellophane embraces
she will take home
to be opened in photo albums
Christmas newsletters
scratchy tape recordings
to nourish her
on those dark winter evenings
when she returns late
from the library
where she has worked for forty years

Poetry Magazine