At eighteen Tyler Gale 

Attends K State in Manhattan. 

Sis is married with three kidlets of her own. 

Joe Junior is a lineman for the county. 

Mama Gale, aka Dorothy, 

Likes to garden and loathes to bake,

Though she has a fondness for sweets

Of the Krispy Kreme ilk. 

As for Joe, he snores. 

Every spring, when the air is just so,

Dorothy finds a quiet corner of the yard, 

And in a voice grown husky

Incants fragments of a song she once knew.

—

Cherry Blossoms

'Along the street people flow, 

Singing or sighing as they go... ' 

—W. H. Auden, 'New Year Letter' 

Before the snowfall of cherry blossoms 

I watch a woman cross Rock Creek Bridge, 

Reading a letter, smiling as she walks, 

Radiant in her happiness, sun-blessed, 

A festival of one. Her smile causes me 

To wonder at the words, are they of love, 

Friendship, familial news? Each a chance, 

But I hope they speak of love, for it 

Is spring, the air is light, and it would fit. 

How rare today, the hand-written note!

What but penned words on paper can be 

Savored, held, postponed until the time 

And place are right? And here it is— 

The sun, the bridge, the snowy blossoms.

—

Coupling

Last night it was Donne and du Pré. 

Tonight, who knows— 

Mozart and Millay, Schubert and Szymborksa. 

Corelli and de Castro, 

or a surprise chosen from a thick anthology 

and radio's chance. 

It isn't the couple that matters, 

though sometimes the coupling is spectacular. 

It is the intimacy.