Smells

She doesn't talk to me
about romance,
and bottles of wine.

When I do her cooking, I tell her
all good things
begin with an onion.
I just diced one
and now I start.

Celery, green pepper,
corn, cabbage, chick peas, I love these
with cubed baked potato.
I toss in a little sugar to carmelize.

This is common food, food of the hand
we can all understand it, like the
simple commandments from the breath of God.

I stand at the frying pan
on a translucent bridge
over a trans-
substantial ravine.

Rest Stop

It's a burp of a thought
coming straight from my body.
My mental muscles get so
slack I soon won't be able to hold my
head together.

I will have floated far away from my
man-in-the-moon,
the best friend of my start,
and arrived in this life
outside the tribe.

Here where she
always sleeps
on the south side of the bed
and I put her bread on the
southern side of the toaster,

here where I carry
old memoranda
like a blanket and
bear them
rattling around
when I move,

I have to wear a black shiny
time traveler's coat
that's always
wet from contact with
the Earth's warm air.

                                                                                © Don Schaeffer

Loch Raven Review Winter 2005 — Vol. I, No. 2
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