Mykonos

 Sugar plum, fairy

who kindly took me in,

you looked like one of those

white buildings on Mykonos

clean as a tide

in an open shirt.

Me, just a ragamuffin then, but

you treated me like turquoise and silver,

a small sparkling thing.

I loved your love of Gato Barbieri

and the notion

that I was worth the introduction.

Sugar pea, you knew me better

than I knew myself,

didn't you?

That soothing shade of Greek blue is called

Ambiguous,

and it's lovely, like early morning

or an offered hand

in a pearly cuff.

______

for Dverse Poetics "double dipper." 

I used Sugar Plum. 

Michigan Green Cab--A Eulogy

Dante was a cab driver.
He didn't have a lot to say--
pretty silent like the front coming in
or the energy efficient cab he drove.  

Dante kept a log--
place and time of pick-up,
place and time of drop-off,
miles traveled,
fare;
a whole day's work in neat lines and figures. 

Some drivers ask people questions,
talk about the sports teams,
or swing their arm across the back of the empty front passenger seat,
about an inch from your knees.
Some show up early, when you're still hopping around
with a heel in one hand and your phone in the other.
Others worry you, 
stopping for coffee or Red Bull,
showing up late and putting you past your time.

Dante liked living on his own,
down the block from the car wash.
No wife telling him to turn off the tv
or saying "we have to talk." 
No kids squabbling, bringing home trouble.
Nobody dropping in unannounced.

Every day, the roads could be depended upon
to be where they were the day before:
Walter P. Reuther Expressway,
Southfield Road,
Woodward Avenue,
8 Mile Road, Detroit side, suburb side.

He had a schedule--
don't ask him to switch shifts.
He had his log book
and lunch at 1 o'clock.
Last run as the sun goes down,
earth spinning slowly, 
dispatch taking the calls.

Dante will be glad enough to see Jesus, I expect,
as long as He has the good sense to ride quiet
and know where he wants to go.
_______

for Izy's Out of Standard challenge--Eulogy For A Stranger

In A Strange City

In a strange city,
where the local language sounds like gravel poured from a wine glass,
I found her selling tiny blue swans made from azurite.

Her swans were unexpectedly soft,
but she warned me that their blue would fade
with heat and time.

One eye was hidden behind her hair,
making her partial to half moons and split natures.
A caged bird faced away from her on its perch, singing to the public square.

She told me she was a Habsburg, and partial to carriages;
did I happen to have one?
No. I told her I was the Swan Police, and she must come with me.

When she laughed, it was the same,
exactly the same,
as a woman in New York, or Bucharest, or any other place where Gypsies are.

No dealer in antiquities ever touched a vase, or a sculpture
more tenderly than she touched my breasts, that evening in her two-room upstairs flat.
No occupying army ever met less resistance. 

Later, on my back and insensible, I had just the strength to take her hand 
and move it from its craftsmanship to my face, where her fingers left a sweet shine;
she laughed again, this time as rare as a royal.

I had to leave in the morning, of course,
but I packed the swans carefully, like sleeping babies,
more beautiful and less blue than even the day before.

_________

the city pictured at top is Prague, Czech Republic 

Hush

"Hush,"
she said,
with her finger to my lips.

"Shhh,"
she said,
her hands finding skin.

Didn't she understand
that I am not,
never was,
never will be,
any kind of beautiful?

"Not a word,"
she said,
as lips followed hands.

"You don't have to--"
"Maybe I want to."
and finally, I realized that she meant it,
there in the
quiet,
together in the
hush.
_____

for Words Count with the gorgeous Mama Zen, at Real Toads. She asks for the stuff that is difficult to write, in 75 words or less. This poem has 65.