Size Matters

I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the water
the fish cry
and the water
is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing a chapel of dark vines. . .
it matters little
very little love is not so bad
or very little life
what counts
is waiting on walls
I was born for this
I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile - the winds -

To a Heart in port -

Done with the Compass -

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -

Ah - the Sea!

Might I but moor - tonight -

In thee!

Smile

Conchitina Cruz

The man who thinks he is God likes to say “I forgive you.” Because they are

obliged to be kind, the nurses ignore him as he raises his right hand to bless

them. While they change the sheets, he forgives the world beyond his window,

the trees, the parked cars, the janitor sweeping the cigarette stubs off the side-

walk. I forgive you. I forgive you. The nurses lead him to bed, then leave. They

cannot stand his eyes, full of pity and condescension.

To the doctor, he says nothing. He thinks she is the Virgin Mary, and even God

is in awe of The One Without Sin. She approaches his body with the method of

a mechanic. She listens to his heart, his pulse, his lungs, inspects his ears, checks

his reflexes. In a few minutes, she will be out of this hospital, in her parked car,

off to a date with the man she believes she will marry.

When the patient catches her eye, the doctor is somewhere else, in bed, holding

the blanket close to her body as her future husband holds a camera above her.

“Smile,” he says, and she does. The man who thinks he is God returns the smile

of the woman before him, the Virgin Mother, and the room is flooded with the

radiance of the moment, a man and a woman in the middle of a sweet misun-

derstanding.