Their Mother

is over there
somewhere

beyond
her

pop art
curtains

now a pillow
case

under
her dream

of two hippies
in a stream

with strings
of blue glass

beads
clicking

ovals of grass
green

my love, call
her, my love

Drab

Drab spring swallows the remnants of
winter... breaking 40 degrees
or the first time this century
though last year seems to want to stay

the way decades linger into
the next. All morning the sky light
remains fluorescent-like until
the overcast afternoon gives

way to the eye in the safety
net we revolve around. Confused
once again for heaven, we look
inward, at the core of it all,

when we are convinced we’re gazing
upward. Today: A bit milder,
but drab, and somehow within this
mere prediction we find ourselves.

Sitting

for twenty
minutes
with bare
attention
to the breath

what she saw
in the winter trees
before they met,
comes back
to her.

The Image
sitting across from me you see the reverse of my image.
that’s the way i see it.
then my image walks through the room toward a door.
Yours remains in the sun and just glows there.
you are glowing like those flowers i saw today
that reminded me of charles simic’s glass of milk.
the end is tragic because i won’t remember this.

O

ah,
there are
a lot
of stars,
but that is something
i can fathom.
if there were a million
stars
and we could count one
every second
we would be together
for eleven and one half days.
for now though,
the reflection of a white moth
spooks me
in a black window
as i reach for a piece of scrap paper
that says, a billion seconds
takes thirty-two years.
on the other side
a poem scribbled in pencil
reads: allison
     benis lives
     in La.
i saw her once in an anthology.
if i was able to carry that book
on this ledge
i would somehow balance myself
better.
it helps to be thin
and to touch things.

© Todd Beers