Elaine Dempsey

Across the Square

Forget all other tales
this is the version he would want
you to know--

In a small alcove
under the monastery's now-silent
bells, the beggar stood
in the dampest of cold
frozen to the building's crumbling stone
annealed by winter's ravages
numb to hunger's war
he sealed his eyes
against the day's meager earnings
and lifted his head towards
misting grey skies guessing
that his sparse gifts were not enough
to buy bread for the night
were not enough to turn his few coins
into a feast of July.

Wet, he stood there stoic for hours
until one drop of water
forced his eyes open, earthwards
across the square
where he could barely make out
the scintillant figures--

a young boy and mother
the boy standing
on the woman's toes, dancing
in the yellowish light
of a just setting sun.

Inside his empty body
the pulse of famine suddenly
seemed less rapid
the burdens of winter
less black.

The rain
altogether vaporous.

North Truro Sea Cottages

Many. Small boxes of salt.
1940s factory duplicated.
Neatly rowed like army barracks.
Painted doors all facing north.
Sheer-curtains the color of wine.
Each named for a bold blossom.
Dahlia. Dogwood. Magnolia.
Painters and photographers
Bury them whiter in winter snows.
Glisten them orange in evening suns.
Ocean kitsch. Tourist chic.
Stark. Strange. Little. Lonely.

Oh, how I could love you
in one of these.

Terra Luna

Happy and on our way to The Dancing Lobster we
make a list of other restaurants we frequent here:
The Praying Lobster
The Whispering Lobster
The Meandering Lobster
and finally
The Gossiping Lobster.

We detect a theme.
Drive to Terra Luna:
Italian chef makes good in Portuguese fishing village.
Specials are lobster bisque with hint of garlic
and lobster bake with hint of garlic.

We order cannoli for dessert.

Kiss

Wanting to kiss you I don't
though I have memorized the small ridge
on your lower lip where your teeth rest
each time you close your mouth to wait
for my response or consider the plausibility
of a story I've just told you or contemplate
kissing me in my car in the middle
of the afternoon when we should both be
anywhere but parked behind this empty
factory wanting to kiss.

These Photos

Everywhere my mother is
a young woman. In these photos
she smiles from scenes where children
have not yet found her--shy
in a black dress before dinner
out with my father, radiant
in a red nightgown the morning after
Christmas Eve brought gifts only lovers
would give. Waist draped in an apron
she props herself on the kitchen sink
studies art history while dinner warms
in the oven. Outside, she is happy, too,
pulls flowers from the garden
reads Proust on the chaise lounge
long into the afternoons.

At night, she practices her calligraphy
brushstrokes lines and curves
again and again until she drifts
into sleep, dreams of nothing
but breathless figures. Next to her
ink dries in open bottles.

The names of her daughters wait
to be painted.