End of Summer Poems

Strawberry Pancakes
 
Plump ripe strawberry time
bought a big dollar box from
the all-night-fruit-guy
set up by the 7 train
cuz I ached for someone
to make pancakes for.
Sweet treasure carried
juice-stained palms carried
over that dark patch
of raw summer sidewalk
I always mistrusted
torn up by tree roots
deep-buried shadows
so carefully carried
feeling along my dark way
like reaching through
the wicked dawn across
the bedsheet to
an empty space.

*** Strawberry Pancakes appears in the Summer 2020 edition of The Rat's Ass Review! ***

Hot Dad Poem
 
There on the corner -
striking on my sinews
popping sonic like
a fat string rings -
see a sweet hot man
with a baby in a carriage
and a husky on a leash
tattoos, pierced nose
I thrum for him
bones resonating as I
dance on down the street…
Is this the last held note
of my surely dying womb,
or that good good beat ever
pulling me to kind and caring
men?  His smile rests at
my chest like a hymn
and warms me with its
end-of-summer song.