Jay Thomas

Another shout-out to the U San Francisco Poetry MFA program:
http://www.mipoesias.com/2006/thomas.html

A Few Coins

Blue ones
under brown.

Not eyes but houses.

Almost evening. Paper sheets
that scurry from the shadows.

Advertisements, bodies
lit from within. Spotlights
on hand-printed walls.

Rain soaks through.
Separates ink

from glass. Yanked wires
dangle. Our tiny legs

one hundred feet
above the snow.
_____

Celine Half Hugs, Half Knocks Him Down

Got his smile washed
in the glare of the propositions.

Some diligent mutt. God-of-the-hay?
Must’ve been a different year,

bus wire threaded through the alley’s
narrow passage, paint

strings looped to Tennessee.
She stands his picture still.

“Champagne for representation
and a dip in the Chesapeake!

Hats off to the moon who makes
the nectarines grow!” As if all those trees

were graves. As if she could deny
the low sad panoply

of logical form or the iron
tension between his bones.

He blows the sidewalk,
gaze down.