L.R. Harvey Poetry

the dancing lady on the corner Looks can be deceiving, but if they're not, her recent meal was mayonnaise crust from a discarded McChicken, topped with sips on melted ice. That Piggly Wiggly shirt has seen some shit. Her body, lithe as twice-smoked Marlboro reds, jerks in and out beneath the cinder burn of mothy lamps. She thrusts beside the grated bench, churning her knees and elbows to the beat of Trippie Redd (or Joyner Lucas?) that pulses somewhere unseen.                                                   But this is not the red-light district mating dance for balding birds of prey. The street is wide and airy as a gaping wound: empty, dark, the type of night when even horny men in minivans give up the search. Only food receipts go crawling down the street. She pauses. She'd like to get it right. Slowly, methodically, she brings an elbow to a knee, does it again, again, rehearsing the move she's seen the kids b

consider the single man who rides the bicycle built for two Imagine them laughing at the drum-click of arthritic knees, smirking at a squirrel's chitter. They hit a root that's moled its way beneath the concrete path. She falls off, he pedals on and doesn't hear.  Perhaps a darker tale: she was and now is not, and it takes more than years  to fill an empty seat and handlebars.  Or further, consider if she never was. The empty seat's an open invitation to be her, to pedal off with him. If only someone would ask. Perhaps his mind's a twisted root. He sees who isn’t there, chats about the Yankees game and stocks while passers stare and tell their children not to stare.  Maybe he killed her. They’ll never know, he promises himself, if only I  keep pedaling as before, smile, show I’m not the type.  Or maybe she is killing him, her memory a gun behind his head, forcing him to pedal on and pedal on. Consider that

and so do I The table is set,  the painted china roses dance around the maypole of the turkey casserole.  The salad is dressed and double dressed in vinaigrette  and Frank Sinatra’s liquid tenor now dripping from the record player on the oven rack.  The chandelier above the table setting gives off a light as warm as honey rolls piled high  in wicker baskets. He brings his ravenous appetite, sits down and thanks the host, then  slides away his mounded plate, opening a package of saltines.

Reading two poems in less than five comes naturally to me. Why not? I kiss my wife in less than five, I burn no more than six in prayer each morning, spend (at most) eleven, ten,  to sit and just be still. I pencil in from five to seven lines before I wind up crumpling all my work, no more than five deciding if you, stranger, are worth my time.  This life runs fast—keep pace. But what if it's a walker's race?

Damn it, sit still I’ve tired of simply glimpsing it in homeless men or bird formations, feeling it in brooding sunlight on my forehead, the chill of bare feet on the concrete stoop. It's wearisome, this knowledge that it's dancing in plain sight around life's snowy fields while I am bound to only see its footprints. Meanwhile, I taste it in a turkey-melt on toasted rye, see glimpses on my ride through Broad St. after work before it's gone again. I'm  not ungrateful for the times I taste it in an egg with perfect salt, the paperback with folded edges in the bottom of the bag, but oh, just once, to look it in the eye.  The blue and green and purple shapes are beautiful, but how I’d like to cast off this kaleidoscope and see the light.

George, when Mary passed Her breath had slipped the space between her rib-cage, bent down and kissed his forehead while he slept, then padded across the coffee stain out into balmy Alabama night. She left no prints.  ---                             Today is Sunday. After church, Ms. Jenny holds his bony forearms, says Lord it just aint right that cancer plays both judge and jury in the court, says let her know if green-bean casserole would help.  The congregation shakes the reverend’s hand, filing out to porch-front dinners prepped by Crisco fingertips.                                                    He waits beside the oak then slips back in to sit alone, the second pew, as was their wont. The rafters cross like mercy and justice in the Genesis tales.  There’s much I do not understand, he thinks, and weeps the way he hasn't since  Thomas went from womb to heaven's gates  in less than ten.  Above the communion table the