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Five Poems

 

by

Beau Boudreaux

 

 

 

Adriana

Farmed crawfish, a confederacy of cocktail

happy that we’re not married

anymore—exit Raphael

 

banners fall in streams

 

from our balcony—I’ve woken

taut in all certainty

the long pace down the plank

 

I sense the movement on the street

silence unfolds our guarded pavilion

her knife catches the light—

 

the beaded balustrade, sequence of sequins

maybe she’s a pro

throwing tennis balls through banisters.

 

There’s a word…

not Celine, Celeste…élan

her suggestion

 

the way without words.

 

*  *  *

Elysian Field

I falter

mal petit

 

she there holding

her stare

 

rapt

oh Lord

 

consider each eyelash

lake marked

 

by buoy

a gesture

 

speaks her hands

something nether worldly

 

pure fatigue encased

on the wing of another

 

*  *  *

Eye Candy

Some times we’re given

a gift, to open

or simply increase

 

the traps would not set

if nothing were caught—

 

your heady perfume, the lip print

on a cigarette in the ashtray

 

the way I lose myself

in conversation

 

merely looking is possession

permission—

 

founded on vanity,

seriously think about

 

the rights and feelings of you

rather than my own.

 

*  *  * 

Telemachus to Odysseus

 Dare listen and think

we change, cut above the brow

wind chimes ting window sills

 

and now there’s no settling

rather a select number

father, I count them in the sea

 

poached pompano in meuniere

their hair casually bunned

glossy-lipped, wisped – I don’t watch

 

them drive away, lovers

really wouldn’t be out these hours

slowly I cut the light

 

leaving the fan rotating

slowly, taking my time –

 

*  *  *

Sorrento

We follow weary

back to camp

fingers frozen

 

bags of dead birds—

ducks

the only casualty

 

long in the tooth

hair on the knuckles

talking about the hunt

 

how surprised to pick

one out of the sky

have it splash the marsh

 

and you are there

calling them in like

virgins

 

our shotguns like canons

frighten me

but we want birds

 

mallard, goose, pin tail

too easy

floating aimless

 

on the water.