I think about Miss Riguetta
these thirty years-
her desk diagonal to the chalkboard,
with the knowledgeable red delicious
apple, pose vertical and virtuous atop
-where my larn disappeared.
The always closed door of
her secret closet set behind her.
I would like to tell her I’ve become
what I dreamed of: a lawyer of lies–
a crook for crime. A taster of wines.
When I returned to look for her,
they told me she had left, and went
into the unknown age of retirement.
I still see her in tenth grade, her long
red fingernails, hair in a bun, some fallen
and clasping to a piece of white chalk
and morning sun, announcing herself as
Miss Riguetta. Italian name I assumed, the
dark complexion and hair iced. Cream eyes.
And when she erased the board to a
circular smudge of white she clapped
her hands and particles of dust
went to settle on her chest and shoes,
leaving her remnants for finding.
With a short distance between age
and desire, her sense of color airt fresh,
with shades of sepia, plurals in gray,
yellow tint for her sudden passion.
Halfway in the year, she asked me
to stay after for some extra-curriculum,
and she would work on me longer.
It was soon after when the clock’s hands
lost lastingness to point, and both fell
downward arms-length to the bottom six;
with a few algebraic equations, a yes and
no, perhaps ma’am, my calculator perspiring-
when she undressed to her brassiere and panties
leading with a key to the outcast closet, North
of Pison, and the poison apple she put
in my hand as we entered in, leaning
her fire against my cold stones.
She taught me how flesh for flesh,
is far the same as tooth for tooth
-cruel brevity of revenge;
and humans are all cannibals of sex.
Meat eating, lust driven individuals;
when Eve dropped her hair to her naked
breasts and partook what the devil bled
was delightful to her eye for
my eye on her, when she spoke her body
language of mathematics and tactics
for me to come take a bite and eat,
and it will be all right, all right to have
knowledge as God and not die in algebra.
When the door of tempt did spring open,
the core of a once forbidden apple rolled out
free of oblivion.
A Window to See Through
A window to see through,
is as the stroke of a painting
where a river of oil runs through
pastel floras and faunas, to the
rush of a paintbrush on crevice.
A window to see through,
gives a poet the muse for words,
letters of the alphabet dangling
from the tangled branches of stars
as picking grapes off vines and
serving on the white moon plate.
How we all want many windows
when looking for a house,
a brightly lit home with sunlight
stretching from room to room
bouncing off clean, clear glass
looking into a blossomed blood
flowers bed
and blue, where seagulls fly over
the ocean and polished grass,
figure eight in-ground whirlpool
and tinfoil roofs,
this is living we say...
but what good are windows,
when the mood is lived low-
to the woman that always sits
drowned for the storm to come.
The thunder roaring in head,
and rain thrashing against
the windows of her soul-
blinds pulling out the light
and binding,
to a four walled room
sounding as a tired drum-
windowless and widowed,
with peeling and twin fruit bowl
wallpaper, a ceiling of plaster
cigarette stained smoke,
the four walls of a heart
this is first where that light
must enter, through the open
eyes of windows freshly painted
Spoon and Fork
While yet married to a dish,
the spoon ran off with the fork
to elope into a knife
cut-throat marriage-
going feeding porkishly
at Las Vegas buffets
and drinking glass
after glass martinis and wine-
gambling the night away.
It wasn't until the cow
jumped over the plate perfect
2006 LizaBeth Poetry Award and Unscrambled Eggs Poetry Contest, and was nominated Best Poem of the Year 2005
(Muses Review). He recently released a chapbook Parched and Colorless with The Moon Publishing, and a full-volume
book of poems Back Words and Forward (ISBN:1424113563).