A Bird in the Hand
If you traced that improvised melody
and found below a tattered canopy
of elm and maple, laced with bittersweet
in overgrown brush, the secluded perch
where a gray catbird whistles and ratchets
disjointed notes and phrases, mimicking
distinctive songbirds and sitting pretty
as a poker player with a pat hand,
would you go all in, gamble a mocking
imitation, raise your sarcastic call
and risk it all for an idiotic
back-and-forth of one-upmanship, or would
you sit absolutely still, fold yours hands
and listen fully for the final trill?
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Body Art
Waiting for the light to change, consider
in front of Lucky’s Tattoo & Piercing
behind the steering wheel this old woman’s
sculpted face. The left temple’s divot carved
by a brother knocking her with his bike
on the gravel drive, playing the cowboy
to her squaw. Pouches under both eyes
formed when her man vanished in Viet Nam.
The centipede crawling from her lips punched
in by the second man for choosing books
over bookkeeping at junior college.
But notice she’s been perfecting the glow
in her hazel irises, a soft yet
definite shimmer that declares: See me.
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David Ram, a retired teacher, enjoys living in Easthampton, Massachusetts, where he practices poetry writing and dory rowing. His recent poems appear in JAMA, Naugatuck River Review, Sport Literate, and Star 82 Review. His rowboat appears regularly on Nashawannuck Pond.
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Stone Poetry Quarterly 