By Kirby Wright
Outside the Boulangerie
Man on foot with bike shoes
Reminds me of a woman
In bright heels
Negotiating cobblestones.
I remember mother
Walking the plank
Down the hall,
Stilettos clicking for
The master bedroom.
There were bills
Owed to the master,
Bills paid in flesh
After the curtains were drawn,
The AC fired up,
And the door locked.
The man with bike shoes
Wobbles a path
Strewn with white petals.
My mother wept
When the door swung open
And the AC quit blowing.
The aroma of baking bread
Drifts from the boulangerie.
Bike man wolfs a croissant.
Mothers stroller
Discussing the weights
Of their babies.
The Unattached
A baby’s cry rattles
Awake the unattached
On a Sunday morning,
Complicating hangovers
And assorted aches
With regret and self-loathing.
Why, what’s wrong
With marriage?
Desperation sweeps the plains,
Sparked by the desire
To birth imagined children
And orchestrate picnics
Beside the diamond river.
Symphonies of calls and texts
Haunt the airwaves.
Legions of the single
Seek and surrender to partners
That might
Resemble their parents
In a score of minor ways.
The Last Aztec Mocha
She announces to baristas and locals at the coffee bar that this will be her last Aztec Mocha for a year because she’s off to Hanalei Bay tomorrow morning. There’s an avalanche of hugs and tears. She wants to be missed. And she will be missed for her purchases and tapping out of caffeine-inspired monologues on the chocolate floor.
There will be no applause when she returns in twelve months. No one will admire her strings of puka shells, sniff her pikake perfume, or ask if Kauai’s waters are warm. The familiars will have moved on to new hangouts and jobs as she waits for her final Aztec Mocha in a bar filled with strangers.
About the author:
Kirby Wright’s new book of poems is THE WIDOW FROM LAKE BLED, which contains poems written during his residencies in Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, and Martha’s Vineyard. He was born and raised in Hawaii and his Hawaiian memoir is due out in 2015.
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Ali Saul
Ali is a Law undergraduate at the University of Portsmouth with an especial interest in Constitutional Law. He is a keen musician playing mandolin, guitar, drums and keyboards. He also enjoys writing music and poetry.
