Gray

He unpacks Courvoisier and chocolate
and we watch brown leaves like tiny
fingers flutter a sway-back tree.

Our motel windows show tidal
flats shining darkly – as if
coated with a film of ice.

Blue smoke plumes from A-frames
on a beach where gray sand
is sculpted by gray water.

The wind piles foam in a
dirty line, spindrift climbing
a wall. Papers whirl, gulls shriek.

A long weekend ahead, we
pace the small room. Cold
beats against the heater.

Should have packed games,
cards, books, I say as wind
rattles the windowpanes.

He blames everything on
the gray unfurling in
a fog no one can penetrate.


Previously published in Poettalk



FLEA MARKET SATURDAY

In the flea market, in the
stall, next to the rusty nuts
and once-used bolts, paintings
of a golden-domed mosque.
8 x 10 or 12 x 16 Best Offer.

In the stall next to the
paintings, scarlet and gold
caftans flutter in a hot summer
breeze. A sign reads: Authentic
African style. Marked down.

Next to the caftans, a table
displays intricate filigree –
necklaces, earrings, and a ring
with dubious stones and real
silver. Muy barato.

And across the aisle old clothes
marked vintage, knock-off
perfumes labeled similar to,
tools marked good as new,
and books out of print. A Buy.

Entrepreneurs for a day
staff the stalls with accents
and abacuses, calculators and
cigar-box-change, Americans all,
their offspring down-load music
into I-pods and talk on cells.



Flea Market Saturday was published in the poetry journal, Song of the
San Joaquin.



SNAKE DANCER GIVING THEM
THEIR MONEY’S WORTH

In the neon glare she
danced for her father and
their livelihood. Light
as a gazelle gilded with
multiple live snakes, the
little girl shimmied.

Carnival goers gawked at
the sight, she so delicate,
so young, the slithery
serpents so vile and so
inured to the Midway’s
crackle and glare.

See the sly,
crafty python
straight from
the Garden of Eden.
See the girl weaned
on pit viper poison
and a boa’s embrace.

They waited for her to
trip, to quail, or to fall, waited
for a rattler, waited for some
stupid, slimy creature to
sink fangs into her tender skin.

They watched later as her
father lifted reptiles from her
frail body, held their breaths
later as he freed her from the
wiggling masses. Watched in
satisfaction as she shivered,
a convulsive tremor traveling
through her, rocking her,
appeasing them. Their
applause shattered
a slithery, slack-
jawed silence.


Previously published in Rattlesnake Review and Fangs #1

© Cleo Fellers Kocol