WEDNESDAY'S HOUSE They come in a confusion of locks pony-tailed, shaved behind the ears sweeping brunette and blonde flames They wear beards instead of masks eyes pouring out in search of similar boats fighting unseen waves bobbing to a deep music They wear boots and gym shoes various dyed leathers cover their toes hard, flattened death protects their soles Two slant shelves hold fossil books in subtle architectural capture Titles askew, bindings worn an occasional tourist scans the words listening to sofa spewed conversation Girls in black, women in brown one man wears the white trench coat of an obvious spy Others wear jean jackets leather-shouldered, wool collars They come for coffee a sweet launch They disappear into the night brief stars quickly darkening. HANDS UP These are the hands of humanity scratching at God's blackboard in the sky our sins rake his hearing the silence his forgiveness These flares of white spirit drip from fingertips bloody effort this reaching upward no pushing a rock but hanging from this constant wish being forced to be alive Or perhaps we are victims of some cosmic robbery standing in line at the bank waiting to exchange spirit for currency or simply check our balance When the hooded terrorist arrives "Hands up!" he cries and we obey the god of the moment "Hands up!" he shouts Priestly eyes glaring through slits pokes of dark sunlight through spun wool clouds We empty our pockets snap open purses "Alright, everybody on the ground." We kneel, prostrate ourselves against the marble floor it's cold reality "Nobody saw me, you hear?" A woman cries, a man cannot hold his wind We pray for time to move quickly while each minute grows a beard We pray for some uniformed human to give the okay to rise I look at the white crippled spiders hanging from my wrists I have been robbed I am alive I hit my fingertips against the marble make my own humble music look through the window toward a light blue sky AMNESIA Is it now that I am finally come to distrust bliss avoid beauty? How shall I resist each time I feel the pull of subtle eyes lower my own? avert my gaze? curl my fingers into the safety of an untouchable fist? And where do I spend those memories those bright filaments of neon grazing through the meadow of those former me's seeing, smelling, picking those various blooms that dance of colors bobbing behind the stage of my forever sight Do I pull the curtain end this sad show clear the ticket booth to my heart How do I close this door-less passage to my insides Shall I stack boxes of work of unattention in the hallway put yellow police tape to bar travel invent some odd investigation or tell the truth: Here is where a murder took place the victim was unknown to all but himself What picture shall we put in the post office what suspect described only as "beauty" (photo pending) leafing through the scratch and sniff mug shots I cannot betray her without killing myself again and so I must forget EUREKA JOE'S I She is a woman of stalks straight corn silk covering her ears a brilliant row of white kernel smile I have seen her forehead on another agriculturalist that dome beneath the part She curls into a part mantis to look at photo proof sheets another corny grin harvested long fingers clutching the yellow envelope depicting the pride in her ability to see snare in small squares the sultry attitude of moments her friends captured in the silvery filmed zoo these small cages of time Her bent knee, an apex jiggles with each breeze that seeing instigates within her Her unsmiling mouth a fallow field waiting for the shutter click to produce a new crop now she picks up a small, old paperback she is not the kind who reads even a short book straight through but liberates a page or two each reading She sweeps the corn silk back changing the frame now her real face unlike any other I've ever known slips into my binocular lens I note the jaw an easy gradient to the chin the ears that swim in slight apostrophe a diminished pucker of lips that smiles easily speaks with caution Her fingers curl more tightly around the edges of the book (the already read folded around back of that which awaits) She rises, a regal moment leaving the print for a semi-startled glance around the cafe (no meaning can be imputed) But beyond all these details and slight movements there is her pale silver spirit a reflective necklace hanging straight down from two godly fingertips She is the kind of accidental laugh that makes the gods worth worshipping an eye dropper of medicinal grace that can spell an end to a long illness a silent heart I cannot pretend she will confirm these things to me hesitant as she is to speak to strangers She sticks the book mark between her teeth begins to whistle no music then stretches to put her jacket around her shoulders She is leaving gloves cloaking fingers white hands turn black beneath fabric She stands slips through her bag takes two giant steps and disappears No Simon Says "You may leave" She evaporates out the door The darkness swallows her whole II In her place a startling blonde where mantis stalks had sharply cut a geometric pattern of silvery flesh now a succulent new intelligence Hair tied back nothing hidden she gazes at pages of her own creation A notebook woman Sheer intent As she writes her smile creates a channel in her cheek a shoot-the-chutes of laughter down into her pen spilling out on the page a funny ink Her neck arches creating a different channel more thoughtful ink and then another grin that she covers with her pen hand Now the finger goes between her teeth her brown crossed legs a launching pad for a new book? An article of irreverent belief? Her arched head now tilts a reverse dimple small roseate swelling her chin planted in pen hand I realize if I were a vampire she'd be ready for me I send new thoughts with sharp teeth mental fangs and chew that participle plain It is unfair to watch that gurgling brook of humor and not see the source not be able to count the crawfish paragraphs scrabbling along the bottom tickling her thoughts As an editor would I boil them or eat them raw take a claw only leaving them to crawl off with a sextipedal limp? Now she has grown serious again an Excedrin headache pose writing from the imagery of a fallen lover a betraying girlfriend a father's regular abuse a mother's malady She glances at her watch The grieving over the time well spent I am glad she is leaving not because I haven't appreciated her performance But I realize that one simple word from her might start a revolution of laughter a war of new pain STILL-LIFE This hand quivers with desire to move a brush deep into a palette spanked with colors succulent oils arrogant acrylics This hand aches to fill the bristles with wet pastel arch against the tight-stretched canvas and kill this fragile moment of seeing you by remembering it forever This hand can barely resist the blade that might encourage enough red out to match the bleeding of your hair the arterial pucker of your lips This hand pauses, pen on page above the paltry sketch you words incapable of describing the rounds of your womaning the slender cascade of blue jean streaming down from the green apron that barely hides your heat You walk into the rest room I try not to imagine your pulling down those jeans curling cotton away from your inner-ness This is a private moment a time of no make-up the toilet doesn't care if your hair is combed your lips smeared Finished, you re-emerge brush a stray hair from your forehead return to calculations and coffee pots The man at the counter says something to make you smile what would it take to make you cry?