Ballad of the Vernal Equinox
Her cup of coffee’s getting cold,
she’s poured herself some gin,
her melancholy uncontrolled,
her winter-patience thin.
She pulls the curtain back to see
the bitter silver storm
that’s come to numb Sault Ste. Marie
when weather should be warm.
The snow has stopped, the moon shines hard,
the wind’s a gentle hush.
Coyote drifts into her yard,
out from the brittle brush.
He stares her down with raw desire,
his coat a map of scars,
(for after all, he’s stolen fire
and spilled a bag of stars).
I know a place where daffodils
are pushing through the ice,
he hints with all his trickster’s skills,
and hopes she won’t think twice.
She smiles at him without a flinch,
reflection in her eyes,
knowing she dare not give an inch
to one both mad and wise.
A flick of tail – and then he's gone
without a backward glance,
his one-time offer now withdrawn.
Too bad. No second chance.
Yet when the geese return, and love
is nowhere to be seen,
she’ll scour the woods for traces of
those brazen spikes of green.
Boots
The grown-ups called her Boots. Stilettoed. Brash.
Hayna Valley girl. All skin-on-bone.
Afternoons, impassive as a stone,
she’d strut downtown to trade her time for cash
(they said) from college boys. As rumors flew, it
made me perk my ears. Living next door,
I learned new words like incest, jailbait, whore.
As for her real name, I never knew it.
And then she moved. The Amy Vanderbilts
sang hallelujahs. Thanked their lucky stars.
Boots could not belong. She came from Mars,
thumbing her nose at coffee klatches, quilts,
silk stockings, and the picket-fences of
Earth’s fond contrivances passed off as love.
