He wanders
among the rows of wood blocks.
Many are turned aside,
the curves of the grain imperfect
or the heft just not feeling right.
Then he sits and takes up his tools.
The handles disappear inside his palm.
All that shows, first gouging
then nibbling,
are the fine metal spars
and their hungry edges.
Chips stop flying, a duck appears.
Sanding gives it character --
its curving sides
hint at wooden movement.
The brush tickles the duck's nose
yellow-green surrounds nostril spots.
It moves over the duck's wing
and feathers appear behind.
He releases his duck
to a fine cherry stand.
Glass eyes sparkle within brown down.
The female mallard hunkers
glowering, fluffed.
The day is cold.
May Kuroiwa
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(Peter was on time, I was late)
ReplyDeleteSmile Lines
It was your smile lines that worried me.
Why did such a beautiful woman have to smile
so much and were those smiles sincere?
I could have obsessed about any other part
of you body but it was those lines that defined
your face, that smiling face, always smiling,
always charming, that revealed (I think ) who
you were: a beautiful woman of importance,
a woman of power and prestige, a success
in a man’s world. Is that why you always smiled?
A feint, a diversion, a camouflage, and when you
smiled at me was that another power smile?
You always dressed perfectly, talked with such wicked
wit, yet couldn’t dance. Sometimes your eyes smiled
as well, with such a longing, as if you really
did want me to kiss you passionately, undress you,
walk my lips across your body, but there was always
a distance, a reserve, as if you could not allow yourself
the luxury of passion, passion interfered with work,
passion was dangerous and hard to calculate,
passion was more than a smile
So we continued our minuet, at business meetings,
working lunches where we discussed strategy and
product development, I in my bright tie and dull suit,
you in your beautifully tailored outfit that hinted
at a hidden sexuality and sometimes we talked
of a merger or a possible synergy, and you promised
so much with your delicious smile, an inviting smile
or was it a deceitful smile, a smile that offered
but never delivered, I wanted so much to unravel your smile
and uncover what truth lay under its sparkling brilliance.
Now, I don’t remember whether I stopped calling you
or you stopped calling me. Perhaps we both got busy.
Peter Goodwin