2 New Poems

Notes on Greeting Cards

I don’t “love” you.

I want to adventure with you.

I want to learn what it is to know you.

I want to make our own words for “connection”, for “feeling”.

I want to discover what there is beyond sayings.

I don’t want love; I want us.

Rollercoasters, Ice Cream

There once was some fairytale caution in
speech given to the cathedral park waterway,
the slanted hill of unknowing tilt-a-bob
I slid down in time, with kids of ham-hock
neighbourhood plans, split-sprouting bones of
Old Europe last names, being so blankly read
in cross-stitch stares, trundling up with empty
fridge poisons, penny-candy notions roller
disco days, where we get lost in car radio
static, sounds of ’92 Sunfire tape decks
backfiring.

And how the rollercoasters that came in
late June towered above beach stand snack
tables, how they cast long dripping figures
on 12^th grade shadows earning at once
their first and last gulps of free air
above pier line jumping rough water,
how policemen waved us on in cheer.

But there is time for ice cream
cones, and time for bitter drink,
and time for huff-puff of drawing close
across shimm-shammy board walks to make
bleary town cryer’s tune, time to take
rid above dampened wood of marina boards.