Poems I Like

A collection of a few of my faves...

Requiem for a Pay Phone

All

That

Autumn,

I walked from
The apartment (shared
With my sisters) to that pay phone
On Third Avenue, next to a sleazy gas station
And down the block from the International House of Pancakes. I was working the night

Shift at a pizza joint and you were away at college. You dated a series of inconsequential
boys. Well, each boy meant little on his

Own, but their cumulative effect devastated my brain and balls. I wanted you to stop
kissing relative strangers, so I called at midnight as often as I could afford to. If I talked
to you that late, I knew

(Or hoped) you couldn’t rush into anybody’s bed. But, damn, I still recall the misery ofhearing the ring, ring, ring, ring

Of your unanswered phone. These days, I’d text you to find you, but where’s thedelicious pain
In that?

God, I miss standing in the mosquito dark

At this or that pay phone. I wish

That I could find one

And call back

All that

I

Loved.

_______________________

CELEBRATION
by Mari Evans

I will bring you a whole person
and you will bring me a whole person
and we will have us twice as much
of love and everything

I be bringing a whole heart
and while it do have nicks and
dents and scars,
that only make me lay it down
more careful-like
An’ you be bringing a whole heart
a little chipped and rusty an’
sometime skip a beat but
still an’ all you bringing polish too
and look like you intend
to make it shine

And we be bringing, each of us
the music of our selves to wrap
the other in

Forgiving clarities
soft as a choir’s last
lingering note our
personal blend

I will bring you someone whole
and you will bring me someone whole
and we be twice as strong
and we be twice as sure
and we will have us twice as much
of love
and everything

_____________________________
Unknown

if you were to come here,
back to my door
pinioning me with smooth globes of shoulders
-"drinking" you'd say,- to me
your whiskey breath at my collarbone...
I mean, if you were to come here
if you could come here, I mean

if the sun is really a whistling
hole into heaven and you came here...

Things I throw away everyday harsh and growling on a
broken tooth
my hair shook free from any woman fancy my laundry
on
my back
my boy is beautiful like an indigo bunting, no,
wider,
like the sky it crosses briefly, tree visiting
his wet wings unfurl lash by lash
his curled secret body unfolds
the stomach marble white and hard, the tender
tension of the arms, age trying to get
at his eyes, creep along his hands
but I would protect
even as I snarl and shake
my rough hair my muscle strata rife with white nerve
tubes
and pounding veins
seeing my shortfall in his eyes
or fearing this
I wade out in rough water, under heavy sky
crying come with me follow me

The fall through water
silver
diamond breaking apart
the barracuda fall and slide
against and away
the secret mouths of polyps
ride their cosmos of reef as I
sink with you
around you
breaking apart
silver

the fish have their sixth sense
on the surface of their skin
to move as one, to come as close as one inch from
the
hand outstretched

the sky today is heavy chromium
and tight trees
you are tired and riding to work and
then to your second job
leaving a house in draped chaos
the flags and scarfs of poverty

Ikeep this as my diary, "The sky
today..."

if you were to come here,
back to my door
pinioning me with smooth globes of shoulders
-"drinking" you'd say,- to me
your whiskey breath at my collarbone...
I mean, if you were to come here
if you could come here, I mean

if the sun is really a whistling
hole into heaven and you came here...