JUST FRIENDS?

JUST FRIENDS?

An hour ago
we were just friends

more like acquaintances,
a curtain of propriety
partitioning our impulses

Our mutual attraction as yet unnamed
but undeniably real,
like an expletive we dare not utter

We move with a stiffness
borne out of precaution,
like negotiating a strange room in the dark

Her smile is welcoming, like warm pastry,
my voice as smooth as Italian marble.
Our eyes lock, elude, and lock again,

wanting to speak with our eyes
what our voices hesitate to say
what both of our hearts are feeling

I reach across the table to touch her hand.
It is soft and warm as cotton.
There is a barely perceptible flinch,

yet she does not withdraw--
rather, she glances down at our hands,
then draws a short breath

before her lips betray an emerging smile
as I grope for the appropriate words
that will calm my roiling heart

and forever “end” our  “friendship.”

ENDGAME

ENDGAME

I want to die under the Gulf  sun
         saltwater seducing
         my feet and ankles,
                                        while overhead
seagulls and herons squawk
as they fly in ever-widening loops
against a bleached summer sky
                                        cloudless
and blue as my first love’s eyes

MALL WALKERS

MALL WALKERS

They walk the mall
on legs as spindly
as late autumn branches,
arms swinging like broken gates,
some with strides as timid
as grazing deer; others walk
with the aggression of rutting bulls,
arthritic knees and strained backs
be damned.

Theirs is an unstoppable armada
of grandparents and retirees,
the gaze fixed and determined
as worker ants, oblivious to Sears,
Macy’s, Hickory Farms.

They are not there to shop,
but to outpace senility, to distance
themselves from debilitation.
To hell with elevators and escalators,
 for just around the corner, past
the Yankee Candle shop, lies
the parking lot, where the aroma  of
freshly baked Cinnabon muffins
follows them to their cars as they
rush to stay one step ahead
of a senior moment.