GREEN ROBE
Mondahlia,
Eiderdown from Germany is the bed
In your rose-walled room.
In corner, a harp with dust
On its strings.
Your hands have not touched the harp
Since the birth of your girl.
We watch through a small aperture
In the curtains the outside world
That we would not want to see us.
Rabbits come through arches
In the grasses to nibble.
Two white butterflies send
Fluttering shadows over blue flowers.
Fisherman wearing tall black boots
Bring lights to the bay.
I sip Pinot Noir from your body.
Your baby cries again.
I hand you your green robe.
¤ ¤ ¤
RED CORVETTE
At night, from your bed we watch raccoons
Come out of bayside bushes to turn over garbage cans,
Spill the food on the conrete of your driveway
In front of a red corvette, one of your husband's cars.
He is away in his Mercedes-Benz. These animals
Are like us, Mondhalia, they avoid
The eyes and glare of daylight.
You tell me, if your husband were home,
He would shoot the raccoons and laugh.
Mondahlia, how can you stay with such a man?
¤ ¤ ¤
THE DEATH OF MONDHALIA
Mondahlia, I offered you my life,
But you declined.
I just heard, that Mondahlia you died
Giving birth to your second child.
This time, a boy stillborn.
Mondhalia, I'll never be again as I was,
I still wonder, Mondahlia, what you were.
I never really knew.
You were some type of mystery
That I loved supremely.
It is no use trying to understand anything.
I sit stroking the leg
Of my wine glass,
As I once stroked your legs,
Mondahlia.
