MARCH POETS

Beach Boy

By

John Grey

At a million years of age, the sea is clear.

Another million years won’t age a drop.

On sandy beaches, white-skinned women vow not to move.

This is a place for always looking at the sky.

Nothing folds, only the waves.

A book falls unread and the sun does the angel’s work.

I’m six year’s old, spotlighted where

this yellow ray descends,

my footprints never more tangible,

tiny holes curled up with foam.

A parent, as far away as thirty years of age

is calling, in between pleasured sighs,

“Don’t go too far!”

Is too far a million years back and forth in time?

Is it a stillness, a perfect tan?

Or could it be these imprints stretching everywhere

but where I’ve not yet been?

Maybe it’s a voice, loud and warning,

well-meaning but one I’ve yet to hear.

Escapes from the ordinary

By

John Grey

She misses milk deliveries,

the ones she’d forget to stop

when she went away.

Nothing said there’s no one home

so splendidly, snubbed its

gold-capped nose to the

ones who went nowhere.

Mail just doesn’t do it.

Bills overflowing the box

sneer she’ll pay for this

when she gets back.

And newspapers sprawled

across the lawn are worse.

Headlines of death,

destruction, in other places.

She remembers the old

days when she poured

bottle after bottle

of sour milk down the sink,

like dispensing with

that one week of her life

she didn’t have to live.