Published on: 8/12/2013
Complacency

On the Day, the tinny strangled scent of annihilation.
Only the animals could smell it.
The rest of the village clacked along, rolling
through routine. Goat-bearded Noah alone
choreographed panic's two-step
bleating, neighing, great floating tufts of fur.

The first drop found an unnoticed child.
The purpling sky bruised the marketplace as
one by one, O's comprehended raging electric heaven.
Quicksand of puddles.

The damned slapped against the sides of the boat,
hoarse pleading for entry into that vomit-tinged,
keening sanctuary. Wails of lament in perfect pitch
with Storm's minor keys and tumult of waves.
Slaps became taps and succumbed to water.
An ocean of blue
dead, mouths agape, sucking.

Thousands of years later, time's planes are plumped;
fear's sandpaper is fluffed with a dryer sheet.
Soft light in the nursery kisses round cheeks,
the infant's innocent heat.

On the wall a picture of smiling Noah.
Cotton candy elephants and Creamsicle tigers.
Scribbly sun over the ark, anachronistic rainbow.
Only the playful spots, satisfying symmetry
of those heaving giraffes remain.
The baby sleeps.

Published on: 7/23/2013
Blue

Just once
I beheld an enormous blue butterfly
liberated from some vine-barred Amazonian jungle.
Larger than a bird, majesty of light
blazing through its stained glass wings.
The sky longingly held it up, admiring, remembering
when in youth it had mirrored that startling cerulean hue.
Its wistful sigh blew it over our peeling roof.

My eyes strained for it, despairing, making butterfly-shaped cutouts
in the rolled square of the sky. Who could have known
my heart had an empty space that could only be filled
with the mystery of flashing wings? The dreadful tenderness
of a fluttering kiss from God, too brief to be felt.

Days of ticked boxes and talk of the weather.
Well-worn grooves that flatten the crunch of the road.
But the wonder of soaring dances behind
day's staid and plodding machinery.
Somewhere the shimmer of blue
washes clean the grimy face of the world.