Two Poems

 

Widowhood

I used to be afraid of losing you
on a train in Europe.
You'd walk down the aisle, disappearing
through the door to the next car leaving me
behind to save our worn green seats.

I'd imagine the train
stopping at a lighted station,
clanging and clanking, dropping off
the last eleven cars to be picked up
by a different engine and I'd end up
heading for the dark
canals of Venice while you
arrived in hills of Rome.

Or we'd be stopped
for some unknown reason
at a small station near an unnamed
town, three tall cypress trees,
a pale dirt road. You'd jump off

to buy a sausage roll from a woman
on the platform, and I'd sit stunned
watching you disappear
as the train suddenly jerked forward
and picked up speed.

 

Heliograph

Sunlight streams onto my kitchen table,
then fades, retracts, sinks into night

and then returns when I sit with my coffee
in the morning, elbows on the table,

watching the tiniest of ants,
almost smaller than the period

at the end of this sentence,
make its way

across my napkin, past my spoon,
heading toward the bowl of peaches.