Because

Reckless as a yearling raven courting,
I salute you with spontaneous gifts:
blood oranges, wine and chocolate,
Italian soup and Scottish wool,
a wooden clock shaped like a whale.
Asked why, I¹ll only shrug: Because.
Because today the sky was tarnished blue,
a copper lid the ocean simmered under.
Because I am myself and not another,
and you are yourself, and not another,
and we share these surroundings for a while:
A miracle, unappreciated
because at first it seems so commonplace.
Because pleasure is sharp, sweet and fleeting
as champagne, chocolate or oranges.
Because pain is swift and careless as a razor.
Because the wood I carved into a clock
is flesh, and so am I, and so are you.

Medusa

When you greeted us that Hallowe¹en
in your Maxfield Parrish toga,
coiffed hair and tiara of snakes
your guests laughed and doubted whether
a gorgon could have looked so fine.
Perhaps they did not realize
Medusa was a comely maiden
who had the power to transfix men
before Athena cursed her.
But you knew. And I recalled, once,
seeing you in the supermarket
at a distance, your back turned.
I didn¹t recognize you at first,
saw only a woman so bewitching
I held my breath as you moved.
Remembering this, I think of Medusa,
her tiny feet and shapely calves
snug in the thongs of her sandals,
her sculpted arms and bare shoulders
like the finest blue-veined marble,
and how her hair seemed to move
with life of its own. How difficult
it must have been for Perseus
to look away as he approached.
How quickly his heart beat. How keenly
he anticipated her beauty;
how fearsome was his desire.

Love and potatoes

Love and potatoes
sprout from the eye
and root in the dark:

You can force one,
but not the other.

Pommes d¹amour

i. Brunswickers

My great-grandmother¹s dowry
was a basketful of apples
and an orchard beside the forest.
These were God¹s people, plain folk
with hands shaped by axe handles.
They held cards and fiddle music
to be the Devil¹s instruments
but played both, and knew by heart
the Song of Songs. Their love was sharp,
sweet, frothing and quenching
like cider still warm from the mill.
They are gone half a century;
the grove remains, rank and fertile.
In this no man¹s land I stalk grouse,
study deer, try to woo women
with gifts of tart fruit. If I fail,
I am comforted with apples.

ii. He offers his love an apple

Here these are Brunswickers. Try one.
They¹re as wholesome as peaches and cream,
as bracing as whiskey and marmalade.
Who needs ripe figs or omelettes of quail¹s eggs?
I wouldn¹t share these with just anyone,
only a friend but, if, at first bite,
you feel a bit like Snow White,
I suppose that is only natural.
I¹m no Paris, nor you Aphrodite;
though for this long autumn night, we could be.

Halifax, 1917

by ERIC MARKS

Halifax, 1917

The old man never mentioned it
without shaking his head
in disbelief or sorrow:
Halifax, 1917,
the city levelled in an instant
by a blast unequalled
until Hiroshima.
He was 16 and a half years old,
a cadet still in training
to a crew of fishermen.
He never spoke of the rescue,
the days he dug for corpses,
the nights of guard duty,
the choking smoke,
the looting or the silence.
He had a panoramic photograph
that said most of this for him,
but until the Alzheimer¹s
stole his sense away
he would tell anyone who asked
how the shockwave struck their boat
like the left hand of God,
or how the mushroom cloud
devoured the horizon
and the stolid old bosun
sank to his knees
and wailed like a child.