Postcards from Emptiness

Postcards from Emptiness,
W.A. Verinder


1/

I wanted to become a log in the water
and roll and bump with my too long shape,
The Dead Man Float.

Wait, No—

I didn't just want to keep
The Dead Man afloat.
I wanted to see him,
Go where he sleeps;
Softly and rocking in the shallow gulf waters.

Like the latent cat response
Seeking once again the warm quiet place,
I kept jerking with these thoughts
so that I did not see the world.


2/ Spring, Belleair Beach

The bougainvillea on the patio has grown wild,
It is not reluctant; It is magenta and so healthy,
Limbs rushing in the rising heat.

The white doves mate again and make a nest,
Distracted and cooing
The young secrets late into the night.

I share this with them but-- nothing else,
My body has again become strange to me;
Limp and indolent in the heat,
Wasted, she says, without a lover--

Watching the foreign jasmine bloom and the smiling cat
Who creeps like a shadow in the afternoon
To slowly raise his lips for his teeth;
To beg to join hostile waters
If only to rush clear in the waning retreat.


3/ Summer, Belleair Beach

I feel like a murderer now--
Strange and different,
The sunlight penetrating everything.

The smiling cat’s wink
In the dazzling outdoor glare and the swimming pool full of leaves.
The jasmine vine has invaded the patio, choking out the morning doves’ nest
And the household was so grateful;
Embarrassed by their gratuitous calls of servitude
When we were used to the sounds of the waves.

Today I spent ten minutes ten whole minutes
Escorting small black ants outside
Muttering, I'm sorry, you can’t stay here,
But who belongs here?,
I don't know.