Cellist

In a hall, surrounded by hundreds of people just like myself,
dressed in silk, satin, and tuxedos, shiny shoes and heels with straps
rested on the black and beige floor. Some tapped anxiously, others slowly,
with the rhythm of hot air and friction. But most kept still, bodies erect,
attentive to the sound carried through the round ceiling, plastered in gold.
Strings shook gently against horsehair and rosin as the soloist worshiped
his art in a cathedral filled with penitent prayers. He had played for years,
befriended music at birth. A genius, Mozart for a cello, imbedded in a small
Connecticut town, only discovered by a man walking past his spot on the street.
A gentle shake of the hand reverberated in the mind like the waves that pushed
against our eardrums. Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, one and all touched the strings,
and sang from their cords.

Feeding Ghost Crabs

The day wore on as I walked over the sand.
The park lay clean, but the beach was dirty.
Together, mother and I sat on dusty ground,
beside a bag of seedless red grapes.
We ate some, fed the gulls some, and watched the sandpipers
scavenge for more. Then we peered at little holes,
tunnels to the center of earth, where night crabs made their home.
Mother told me to sit still as she bit a grape in half and threw
the other to the ground. I mourned the loss of half a fruit as sand
diluted the flavorful juice. Raising my head to dull the disappointment,
I stared at the water, gently treading the shore.
When I peered back the grape was gone.

Sand Dollar

Perhaps the artist carved you with fingers of water,
or maybe the salt slipped into your skin to wear your face away.
The clam inside your body must have been cold,
shivering from the holes in your bones.
You tattooed a flower on your forehead to prove that you were best.
Now the color fades from your eyes and you look at the ocean as a mother,
but it didn't make you. No one made you, except for me.
No one shattered your other half, save my hands alone.
Don't fall to pieces again after I spent so long gluing you back together.
You were made to look like stars.

Ice Cream Hunt

Forked lemon ribbons wave behind blonde curls and a smile.
The vegetable man waves a carrot, left in the wake of yellow ribbons.
Black shoes with scuff streaks on the side skip towards the candy shop,
but can't go inside. All the jewels of sugar vanished along with the cash
register and plastic bags. The cement leads on, winding back to the square
where a fountain pours colored water down the side of a rock face,
turning brown to green and lemon.
A cart rolls in front of the child as she dodges traffic to reach the other side.
Ice cream, mounded on a cone that tastes like styrofoam.
Small hands reach up and pass on a silver coin before grasping at the nearest
skyscraper of sweets. Chocolate, raspberry, vanilla, sweet pea.

The Moving Men

A white head with white wings plastered to the side of a black van.
It was a fifteen passenger, those mammoths that try to pass themselves off
for civilian vehicles. A bible verse made into a pun on the side of the van,
viciously stripped of its holy rights, plastered a slogan of speed and efficiency.
The Better Way Movers came to turn the house upside down.
Anyone else would have thought they were robbing us in the name of divine justice.
In all rights, they probably did, we just don't know over the heaps of boxes
and scrap metal left over from father's computer experiments and my brothers old car,
whose heaping carcass still sprawls at the end of the driveway.
We would never know if they took one thing, or if there was a thing worth taking.
Either way, I thought the tall one was pretty good looking, if he were ten years younger.
He winked at me.

Warrior Reborn

Eyes as blue as thunder and lightning glared up at me,
tears on the verge of pouring out like rain.
The focus and the fear mixed with his fists
and threw their strongest force at my chest.
The hurt would never leave his mind,
the danger of falling into the dirt and failing
once more would cripple his legs that ran so fast.
A knife could plunge as surely as he wanted it to,
but a piece of metal, even a sharp one, can't remove loss.
All attacks failed, all weapons on the ground
or broken in half, he no longer resembled an angry child,
but a warrior ready to kill me with all the power
of his broken will. But the real man turned
and walked away with a fresh understanding
of powerlessness and hope.

A Unique Day

There will never be another.
There will never be another sky like the one I saw today as the sun died,
or  another moon like the one I saw last Wednesday night as mother and I sat in the car outside the house and listened to the crickets chirp.
There will never be another day like the one I had today when I met a little boy in the hospital and his father, the FedEx man who delivers my packages everyday.
There will also never be another cookie like the one I ate next to the boy in the hospital as we played Connect Four and laughed at the nurses Pebble's style bun.
There will never be another mug of root beer as biting as the one I drank next to my brother as we watched the football game on the ice cream parlors 52 inch screen,
or another leather seat like the one in my brother's little Ford, stained with Mountain Dew and grease from the bowling ball lanes.
There will never be another person like me, on a day like today.