THE ONE-NIGHTER
It was a hotel room -
but not the kind
for sleeping away
a hard day’s touring.
She met the man,
the frightening
irresistible man,
the one who
spoke of death
as if it were
weather.
The cab
slipped down
a hundred side streets,
avoided light
and cops,
took her to
that dark place
with her monster.
Her skin
was white.
His boiled red.
He planted
death’s kiss
on both cheeks.
She shuddered
at the ruin of her.
Yes, she was confused.
And yes,
she was enticed.
And angry at herself.
He said
she was bubbly –
just an act.
Nature made her
a servant to alcohol,
to screaming
under her breath.
She was mushroom,
soft, wet.
Her watched her
thrash among his clover.
Salmon
swim upstream –
it was like that.
Not the easy way
but the direction
most drawn to.
And then the room,
cheap, enough shadow
to bury what went
on in there.
She suddenly saw him
behind doors.
She didn’t know the guy.
He was not quite
the knife,
not exactly the
strangling vine,
and just a little
of the poison ivy.
He touched
and she touched back.
She shuddered
but she did not bleed.
VIRGINIA ROSE
To return
in July
where stones
capitulate to moss
and every tree
is a backlit scene
from summer childhood
is to waken
the Virginia rose,
pale-pink ambassador
for thicket,
toothed leaflets,
arched stems,
yellow bud
bee magnet
buzzing in
silent chorus
with the insect’s
honey pulse,
a flower first
in remembered love,
in tentative picking,
in gifts to
soft hands
recognized
as all that is
around me now,
as everything
to come
back then.
MAPLE MAN
He spoke of the maples,
all tubed up,
sap running downhill.
Their flesh penetrated,
all that gravity dragging
their juice down,
but those trees replenished,
won out in the end
over every pancake lover extant.
He collected that syrup in buckets himself.
He was a kid.
How was he to know he'd taken
the enemy's side.
The maple trees wouldn't speak
to him for years after that.
Until the wind brought them together.
Until the extreme breeze of old age
wafted, through his bones,
the last kindness he would ever know.
He talked of trees like
they were people,
people like they were trees.
Some gathered at his bedside,
others sent their proxies to the window.
All the sap dripped from him.
Heirs licked the sweetness.
RECOVERY
After work, by fireside,
the walk from the bus stop,
fallen leaves in all directions,
the wind on repeat,
all forgotten by a room
free of outside influences
with only the crows
and their serious black plumage
cawing on behalf of the bitter world.
Twilight crumples insidiously,
moon exposes its yellow chest,
but I am centered in this hall of flames,
warming my fingers in its gauntlet,
shedding ice like snakeskin.
The fire and I are as much magic trick
as marriage.
We can make winter go away.
Food’s in the oven
but there is time for that later.
My wife’s upstairs.
We won’t meet up
until I thaw into something human.
Her love is a warming device
but it’s not as immediate as a roaring hearth.
Ah, the heat crawls up my face.
Feeling returns to my outskirts.
Life is not put off by weather.
As long as something burns bright,
I can burn brighter.
BEWARE THE MAN
it’s a man
that frightens other men
it merely wants to live
but to live
it must replace another man
at the wheel
on the job
supplant him
in the home
in the marriage bed –
it’s a man
other men cannot be –
he’s a woman’s creation -
he’s been forever
in the planning stages
*****
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Levitate, Writer’s Block and Trampoline.