IT’S ENOUGH
As Dulcet Tones sucks
juice from a pomegranate,
his mother tells him that he is
a blob. She laughs,
doesn’t mean it. Usually.
Dulcet lobs the pomegranate
at her head. Ouch,
she says. Night shows up
at the door selling subscriptions.
Dulcet’s mother tries
to convert the salesman.
No sale. Dulcet would have liked
A magazine. He reads fissures
in the moon’s surface, billions
of years near his eyelashes.
It’s enough.
AND WAITS
Dulcet Tones’ grandmother Ada
called herself the toast of ’46. Gentlemen
asked her out every day of the week.
She wore white gloves and corsages,
talked of this perfect necklace of time—
that ended when she married Herb,
nice enough, like a turnip on a window sill.
Ada thought he’d make big money.
She’d have corsages from rare
cataleya orchids. Instead she had four kids,
each like a car with something wrong
under the hood. My mother was the best.
She sighed often. It's like a dream
hid in the jewelry box of her life,
but a thief pulled her out anyway.Dulcet Tones looks for a stronger jewelry box.
He hears footsteps in a dark hall.
The door opens—he looks the thief in the eye
and waits.