I am imagining you
as you were that night
we went walking, down
the street, out near the field
of horses. A mist had thickened
in the air above the grass
and we couldn’t see them,
only hear the shudder
of their hooves. Your breath
was soft, your face
just visible by the diffuse
light of the moon and the far lamp
of the neighbor’s garage—
you had a look
of such calm focus, staring out
over the obscured field
as if you could see, right
through the mist, something
in the field’s very center.
We expected the king, but the princess we received with equal hush. She wore a fascinator of green feathers that shone like our lakes. Her convoy approached our archway. We applauded her. Instead of tucking her chin to her chest (so to prevent the archway from deposing the fascinator), she bent her head up, parallel with sky, and we saw emerge from above her suit her porcelain neck, and, for only a moment, her perfect Adam’s apple.
Miss Marlene MacGlúinebeag was seated at her desk at noontime in Silver Thimble School for Home Economics in Pells, South Shitesdale preparing to eat the second half of her homemade pasta primavera when she noticed a colorful figure resolving in her periphery. Curious and alone in her classroom, the pale woman, raisin-like and aged, rotated her flossy head rightward to look out the window, where she saw:
A peacock!
What a surprise! She blinked at least five times in rapid succession, too stunned to register the uncomfortable abrasive weight of her mascara-laden lashes on the superior fringes of her cheeks.
I.
I blew up a mountain into the face of my shrinks.
I was saying thanks.
In the far corner is the mien of Herb Eveloff,
shrink of my earliest days.
It must’ve been very tough treating me, mom, dad, and both sisters.
My seating posture is modeled after him.
He told me to carve out small alcoves of meaning,
which was preferable to jumping off the very expensive stone balcony.
