In the Patisserie
The legs of the older gentleman in good slacks
are so narrow no gastrocnemius pushes back
against the polished cotton.
Fabric gathered by the belt hangs like draperies
where buttocks once gluted maximally.
A constellation scatters across the back
of his right hand, another speckles his left.
I'm sipping my coffee, looking, loving
him for his not-jeans, his not-sneakers,
his soft happiness at no longer having to rush.
Just here to savor,
he seems to be saying to his snow white wife,
grateful I can still loop the waist
of my good slacks over each foot
in the morning and pull them up,
hold them in place while I thread the belt,
my favorite, the old lizard.
Fine Gaudy Lover
My heart jumps out the window. Turns
a somersault and hands itself over to him.
Splendor in the laurel hedge. Splendor
on the blue star creeper. I squander myself
on a blue jay’s wing. Its shimmer. Its shimmy.
He unfurls those breath-stopping fans of his,
whose color he stole, greedy, from a peacock.
He pauses on the bluestone cobbles, allows
just enough time for my whispered gasp
before his last flash of dayglo. He’s thrill,
he’s changeable taffeta. I want to slip under his wing,
pull it over me—a spiny blanket. Then examine my palms
for iridescence. I’m panting, begging him not to go.
But he’s got other neighbors to titillate
and if their timing’s right, he’s offering a free show.
On the road to my father’s assisted living facility
I stumble on a nursing home
of an orchard, its apple trees long retired
from producing fruit. Dandelions
gone to seed and weeds wild
as old men’s hair, uncombed,
untrimmed and who cares. Dew
beads on the ends of twigs the way
water poises before dropping, unnoticed,
from a drooping nose. A red sunset
bleeds out in the lacy shade
of worm-holed leaves yellower
than they are green. Here and there
a few trunks, hollow but standing,
where ferment of sweet rot
lingers, something of fruit flesh
preserved in it. Nervous squirrels unbury
apples several seasons old, abandon
them at my feet—small, withered skulls.
This poem
is in French
you comprehend it fully as the Èpoisses
twitches your nose slips on your lips
reclines against your tongue
is in bird
several dialects spoken at once
from the horizontal tree
in my garden
is in glance
stranger your eyes meet my eyes
and we know everything
we need to know
This poem is in cicada
hold your ear to the shell
for an hour and the vibrations
will deafen you
is in wind
through the giant sequoia
mimicking a machine a turbine
hard at the harvest
in lullaby
little baby your father loves you
no matter what
comes later
This one’s in cargo plane
a dozen early wakeup calls
courtesy Amazon ripping
through the roof of your house
in rain
indigenous tongue before
becoming the dead
language of drought
in drip
rain’s coda
the perfect tempo
into your veins
Lillo Way's poetry collection, Lend Me Your Wings, was described by Ellen Bass as “rich in music and in imagination…a celebration and a joy”. Her chapbook, Dubious Moon, won the Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest. Her poems have won the E.E. Cummings Award and a Florida Review Editors’ Prize. Her writing has appeared in such journals as New Letters, Poet Lore, Tampa Review, Louisville Review, Poetry East, and in many anthologies. Way has received grants from the NEA, NY State Council on the Arts, and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for her choreographic work involving poetry. www.lilloway.com