Nod and Smile

The companion piece (le compagnon)

by Stephen Boyd

Nods met with nods of consensual affirmation

of everything and nothing at the same time.

I am right, you are right, collectively we are wrong

but why does it matter?

X means y, y means x, and oh…there we are again.

I will solicit your responses

from the depths of your intellect (assuming you read the book)

and smile, approvingly, condescendingly -

Like, you know...like...yeah.

(I think, sometimes, that this is all a waste of time.)

I shall focus all of my understanding, education,

beams of words and insight, countless hours and dollars

into one tiny project, around which you become a mite of dust,

a brick in the Great Wall of Career, a stone at the base of a glacier.

Ah, the stone. What does it actually mean?

You are my afterthoughts.

Here is my knowledge, regurgitated.

Regurgitate it back.

How is it that poetry of the ancients, that ethereal force

that drove so many men (and women) (and children)

to tears, to madness, to college…

…is pulled, screaming, into measured lines and syllabi and assigned reading and pages

upon pages

upon pages

of ignored, paraphrased creations.

We’re staring, you’re staring back and

-pause-

Please question, consider:

Pause, breathe, examine shoes.

“What is another possible meaning for this?”

Flint against Metal

by Mary Sarsfield

A Blood-red morning sun sits heavy on the horizon

Formed by my windowpane.

“Your body is like wax,” you said last night.

“I just sink in, leave an imprint. And then slowly your form returns.”

Your voice reminded me of flint against metal.

I liked the way you hid the flame behind your teeth.

Now your lips are grazing mine

And there is air that we are sharing. It floats from my lungs into yours and then back again, the exhaust of our human machines.

Your hand navigates the valley between my breasts

Along the rifts of my collarbones.

Your mouth is at my ear, your breathing is the beating of distant drums.

Cotton sheets soak up sweat dripping softly. The sun has risen now, into a hazy sky and it looms over us, staring down and the drumming gets louder, closer.

Across the room the thermometer rises steadily. The glass bursts, red poison drips down the wall.

A Sonnet

by Stephen Boyd

With flowing locks of hair so dearly blest

My dear, thou art the one that I shall love;

With heart of gold, all say that thee, possess

Except for he who carries post; Scared of

Your smile, so broad that shines with light divine

And speech within the realms of heav’n doth dwell

He, afear’d of thee, so fast maligns

Thy form, thy love, thy loyalty as well.

He does not understand the love we share

Of heavn’s rays, possess’d the world within

He turns and runs when thy voice fills the air

And considers thy attacks a sin.

I cannot blame him yet, my canine chum

For when he brought the mail, you bit his bum.