CAPTURING MOVEMENT


I am looking for one good ride.
A ride that rouses me, razzles dazzles me.
A sight seeing excursion
when my eyes will be satisfied, making pictures
of how beautiful the way it is people walk,
the weight of their surroundings.

Sitting in paralysis, gleaning seductive Sunday surroundings
time becomes photographic miles.
Light flickers, fabricates passers bye.
Speed increases. Trailing closed car window.
I bless this freedom with my wanderings.
And where I sit immovable with watching eye.


My wrist watch tattoos digital numbers on a purple eye.
This good ride is clocked with driver's minute wages.
I suck in every sight. As tattoos tick.
Brusque stepping sneaky sneakered men, spiked heels
tripping still. Yes, even falling a slow step downward will
feed my inside camera's hungry motion.


Before ridgedness became my many layered emotion
I dreamt of mountain climbing.
Michelangelo and I soared the peaks, lay scaffolded
on clouds in painterly devotion, next to the ceiling of the sky,
brushing walls. Meticulously stroking.
And the heavens aroused, clapped with azure blue gratitude.


Hiking shoes no longer walk. Still there is this act of gratitude,
the weekly ride with camera close. It sweeps the negatives
away into a darkroom. Won't be missed.
As varnished floors the rawness gone, excited,
lifted up above the hills beyond the concrete weight of man,
into a photographic vision that will fascinate all empty walls.


In time the concrete highways will be gone.
No cement walls will separate illuminate the daily acts.
Computer clicks will magnify our inner sight.
And motion will be ingrained in imagination.
Walking will not answer us, except
in the inhalation of each colored breath.


I wait the weekly ride. My limbs gaze into motion's breath.
I've met the surroundings waking walls.
Camera seizes engulfs eyes, I shutter my life full gratitude.

Elizabeth P. Glixman

Estate Sale
(A Pantoum)

There is no order here,
the women shove and grab her things.
There are only bargains
sliding to the floor, being trod upon.

The women shove and grab her things.
Her silky private things
are sliding to the floor, being trod upon,
with linens that she monogrammed.

Her silky private things,
like headless harlots flung out on the bed,
on linens that she called by name
lie ready for strangers to take them.

Headless harlots flung out on the bed,
wilting in their fragile charms,
lie ready for strangers to make them
better lives out there.

Wilting in their fragile charms,
these slim bargains
wait for better lives somewhere.
There is no order here.

Ruth Zimmerman

MAMA TELLS WHY DADDY STOLE A RING
(A Sestina)

"You know that Daddy stole my wedding ring."
He took it from his mother's memory-store
of his father's things. (The '18s dead-
ly Flu had taken him - so many gone
within that time ). As much too young a man,
he'd left his son behind, and all the love

he could have shared with him became a love
abandoned and neglected, with the ring
of NEVER, echoing. This stranger-man
became a symbol for his son to store
his sadness in - not understanding GONE,
he, only three, just couldn't fathom DEAD.

His present girl , however, wasn't dead.
This ring could be a token of HIS love.
His mother might not even find it gone,
he'd pondered, as he pocketed the ring
and planned to say he'd bought it at a store -
a wedding ring, because he's now a man!.

They say the child is father to the man.
Even though the father-figure's dead
the orphaned child must find some place to store
a memory of - or wished-for - father-love.
So, the boy felt passion for the ring
and knew she wouldn't care if it was gone.

Because she'd always said that gone is gone,
His mother'd found herself another man
whose love had bought a different finger ring.
Only children mourn the precious dead
as someone missed and lost to tender love.
The need for it the children always store

within their empty hearts. This barren store
cannot replenish nourishment. It's gone
forever. Thus, the need for lasting love -
as orphan child turned into orphan man -
became his passion, never really dead;
he said he'd marry with his Father's ring !

"So this, MY wedding ring, has fostered love
our man had never known. And thus the store
of agony is gone , and father dead."

Catherine M. LeGault

WEANING

I don't know how to say no
to these ravenous pleas for my milk.
Nearly 3 - no longer a babe in arms,
Yet so strong is your need
to linger at my breast,
that I have let weaning wait.

Some days I cannot wait
for nursing to end, to no
longer have you clawing my breast,
pinching and pulling to draw the milk
down. How long will you need
to nestle, still a nursling in my arms?

Other days, I welcome you with open arms.
Nursing soothes a tantrum, a hurt, a long wait.
On days you want only hot dogs, I know you need
The nutrients I provide. Clearly, there is no
substitute for the immunities in my milk
or for the bond we forged at my breast.

Only minutes old, you put eager lips to my breast.
I held your new body in just one arm.
We learned the soft feel of each other, even before milk
filled us, flowing like warm nectar. I never made you wait
when you needed me. I smiled and said, "No
way," when people said to ignore your need

for this. It seems the most basic of needs.
Day by day now, our bliss at the breast
is less--but not your despair at hearing "no."
"Yummy milk," you plead, eyes wet, arms
raised. Too hard a denial. It is not in you to wait.
So I relent and console you, again, with my milk.

Why hurry really? These are the last days my milk
can be enough to fill your deepest needs.
We were once an island, letting the world wait.
Sometimes it's still enough: drifting to sleep at my breast,
my soft lullaby, your head cradled on my arm.
It's a security we spend our lives trying again to know.

So how can I say no? Weaning can wait
a little more. I'll go on giving milk from my breast
until you need to push free from my arms.

Lauren Cerruto