Cawk

One of them chuckles, teeth barely showing,
jaws tight as if guarding unspoken secrets
buried in the throat, while the other throws
back her head and chortles, mouth open
to the heavens as though urging every luminary
to brilliance unseen by spirits of the day;

A stilted gait belies the expansive soul within
the first and the loose-hipped one knows,
provoking by example, not taking life so seriously
after all, it’s okay to meander off-course,
the divergent path of Frost’s two
while a trail opens wild before her
unlike alien glass doors in cities imbued
with roundabout redundancy, not pondering
or questioning why and how
while laughter rings again and is not hollow
but full and deeply throated like the gutteral cry
of ravens relaying messages across the pinons.

 

~ photo of pinons taken with 110 Instamatic film when we lived in the high desert of New Mexico, 1991

 

 

Cast

Desirous of returning, perhaps,
furtive glances at the young couple, hands
never far from one another, stroking gently
and they know, these manatee women,
how it changes, that touch,
first a small betrayal, feelings far out
of proportion to events peculiar
to youth they would gladly recapture,
if only wisdom would imbue it;

Then follow the children contemplated
even now, his building a sand belly
and photographing, sending to envious friends
because they say so, faking is funny, oh,
the irony, biological urges blurring senses,
morning passion play marking faces,
masks one sees through, if attentive;

Elder gestures now revealing,
impressing far more than the telling,
(youth’s perception terms it envy,
oversimplifying complexities developing,
years left in the making);

Still, the mind casts to and fro,
fly fisher’s line not quite settling on the waters
of imagination, back and forth encores,
brains sharp as once they were,
bodies standing stock still,
melting candle legs supporting
burgeoned bellies, gravity drawing them inexorably
back to point of origin;
bargain made, body borrowed,
innocence hearkening to a time
they, too, were blissfully unafraid.