CLAIRE DE LUNE

She said as a child
it was the first she
heard her mother play.
Now it is the last
she remembers as
all memory falls away.

LOVE POEM

“What are these purple
flowers called?” she said.
“Periwinkle? Periwinkle, I think.
Sorry, I don’t remember,” he said.
“You’re right. You do remember.
They are periwinkle,” she said
smiling and pointing to the creeping
myrtle with one hand and stroking
his arm with the other.

MONOSYLLABIC

The best ones are the small ones,
those you need to hold in your hand
two or three at a time, those you need
to feel for size, and shape, and heft,
the blunt, the sharp, the smooth,
the rough, the square, the round,
the firm, the soft, the ones like rocks,
like bricks or stones in streams,
the ones like clods of soil or clumps
of clay, the ones you pile to build
the whole world with, and then
the ones you hurl to bring it down.