Food

February 9, 2023

AT THE CAFE

We sit across
from each other
separated by
the small table
that teeters,
her cappuccino
licking at the rim.
My toes dance
against hers
and she looks up
quizzically.
I smile and reach
for her hand
touching her fingers
feeling the fine silver
of the rings on each.
She pulls her hand
back and looks
into the rich
brown sheen.
I stare out the window
at the odd car
looking
for a space
in the overfull lot,
then pulling
back onto
the road.
As my mocha latte
slowly cools
I feel her ankle
slide along
my calf.
She stares
at the ceiling fan
just stretching
she says
and I smile.

First appeared in Flora Fiction, Vol. 3, Issue 4, Winter 2022
https://florafiction.com/literary-magazine/volume-4/

February 2, 2023

CABERNET

I should pause for a moment
and mourn the plump orbs
vinaceous in the morning sun,
torn free, placed in baskets
and carried off to be crushed.
But the cabernet beckons,
its first sip telling the tale
of the California summer,
the oak having long forgotten
the tree from which it was cut,
and I watch as the sun
reluctantly retreats,
a flaming farewell, the promise
of a return, the moon casting
its purple glare on the wine glass.

First appeared in Flora Fiction, Vol. 3, Issue 4, Winter 2022
https://florafiction.com/literary-magazine/volume-4/

January 18, 2023

MACHISMO

He was fond of saying
that men need to toughen up,
show more fortitude, take
time for serious male bonding.

He would prattle on about
how so many men were
not true men anymore,
warped by modern society.

I tried my best to avoid him,
to quickly end our encounters and
when I could not, for he would
inevitably complain of loneliness.

Still, I would much rather be
in the kitchen, knives in hand
preparing a fine meal beside
the woman I so deeply love.

January 6, 2023

LISTING

I suppose I should
make a list of the things
I don’t very much like.

I’m an optimist so the list
won’t be all that long, though
it grows the more I think about it.

I was going to put
my ex-wife on the list
but she doesn’t like me
and I have no feelings
for her either way.

So it’s down to
autocrats and would be
autocrats, and customer service
people who have no idea
of what that title entails.

Oh, yes, and lima beans
and cauliflower pizza crust.

December 28, 2022

EGGMAN

When I was a child . . .
God, how many times have you
heard something prefaced by those
ever frightening words, not
scary themselves but what
painful story they promised.

When I was a child we had
a milkman who brought
the glass bottles twice a week,
took the empties and envelope
with his payment from the
shelf built in the wall
just for deliveries.

We also had an egg man
who’d leave a dozen eggs
in a little metal basket
on the same shelf. He
had a great mustache,
almost walrus-like, and he
may have been an eggman
but he was defnitely not a walrus,
goo goo gajoob.

December 27, 2022

SHOPPING

One of the hidden joys
of being a vegetarian is that
for us the grocery store is
smaller than it is for many.

There is no meat counter
to visit, no butcher to engage,
and the smell of fish is
weaker at even a small distance.

I do eat cheese, but not
the sliced sort at the deli
counter, I don’t want cheese
shaved from a massive block.

We all meet in produce,
but I tend toward the organic
which makes my visit shorter
and far more productive.

December 7, 2022

LUNCH

The pelican has remarkable patience. It doesn’t hurt that he knows how this will play out. It’s pretty much the same, day after day. That’s life on the jetty. Once the crusty old man is done fishing, once he packs up his cart to leave, he will dump his remaining bait fish on the jetty. Or, as the pelican prefers to think of it, the buffet table.

November 26, 2022

FOUR WETLAND HAIKU

Apple Snail shell
bleached by the sun, empty
happy Snail Kite

Great Egret sitting still
waiting, simply waiting
then flying off

Red-shouldered hawk
staring into the distance
endless patience

Pig frog croaking
but the moon will not answer
we fall asleep

November 24, 2022

CASSANDRA IN FLORIDA

She is large, and largely immobile
and occupies the bench by the road
that encircles the property like a noose.

She does this each day, a crust
or more of stale bread tucked away
in a pocket of her always floral

housedress that envelopes her
and the bench she occupies
as a monarch on her throne.

The ibis see her coming and gather
at her feet like acolytes awaiting
words from their sage and goddess.

She doesn’t disappoint them, telling
them a tidbit of the world, more often
who was taken sick overnight, who

died yesterday, always a shock
she says, then whispers conspiratorially,
but actually expected, of course,

for everyone here has numbered days,
and then tells them stories of her life,
real and imagined, the veil between

her truth and her fiction now diaphanous.
They grow impatient, but a good queen
reads her subjects and reaches

into the pocket pulling out the crusty
bread, smiles at her flock, says see, I bring
manna and together we cross the desert.

First Published in Chantarelle’s Notebook, March 2019
https://chantarellesnotebook.com/2019/03/22/

November 1, 2022

NO CLICHES HERE

The birds in this part of Florida
have found a way around the cliche
and we are thankful they have done so.

As we saw last week when
the neighbor’s yard was regraded,
and before the new sod arrived,
the “soil” was mostly sand
and there was not a worm
to be found anywhere.

Yet the birds, early and late
got all they wanted to eat,
for their meals are insects
so from now on I shall have
no alternative but to work
to death the phrase, “the early
bird catches a few insects.”

Do you think it will get any traction?