Skin clinic no regrets

Maria Aparecida said this to her friend... 

I did it because it made me feel okay.
The woman there took care of my skin.
Made me feel like a new woman.
Sometimes we spend our hard earned cash on trash.
Just this once I spent my money on something of worth.
Something that made me feel new.
I am walking out of here feeling young.

Because you know how it is,
I'll go back to my reality in the bigger city.
I'll spend my money on this or that.
it'll all be gone before the month has ended.
Most of those bills are out of my hands.
So I bought this today, this treatment.
Something that makes my life feel complete.

Country singer on the train

There was a bush in his singing voice in those big lungs.
The twang of that country guitar really stung.
Gestures made sense as he turned and swung.
 The audience mimicked the chorus.

The singer's smile absorbed into a face full of stubble.
His partner still as he flew across floorboards, strange double.
He could steal the charge on a magnet with his charm.
Serenading the old tunes someone composed on a farm.

Clapping and humming the audience moved their heads to the background accordion.
The song ended and a money bucket passed begging more than we could afford.

Jimmit and Wilworth

 Jimmit a tubby one and his wife same shape same posture.
She sat more hopeful sat at the trainside, hoping for a ticket.
Speculating about the passer's by.
As I do in this very moment.

Little fat leather bags with their personal items and snacks
Their rounded bodies fit into the bench as if they were simply plump mannequins
Specifically tailor made caricatures for the bench
Jimmit's eyes had no hope, he had given up since the last millenia.

But Wilworth's eyes were quietly confident
Their stomachs touched and filled the remaining space between them
As if eating and fattening had allowed them to fit together
Jimmit lay his head on Wilworth's bossom

He attempted to sleep
But those eyes were still open and told the world it was hopeless. 

Just like one two

 There they go again, one two, one two.
Roads side by side.
Train tracks long ennobled by the rust.
Metal twins that never touch, yet never come apart.

There they go, one two, one two.
The clicks of the carriage wheels.
A boxer's combo,
Knocking it out.

It goes one, two.
Just like a bell.
Pulled once.
That chimes twice.

One two, it rings.
Birth and death.
It rings,
day and night.

It rings, it rings 

Late summer day dream

 I guess you came to me the way an acquired taste does, at first it didn’t take.
It didn’t settle or raise the stakes. Then I saw you, as if in portrait.
Suddenly, it all made sense and too much of it stayed.

Unconsciously, you ushered me toward you, good morning spilling from your lips.
I felt something strange in the encounter, gratitude.
But gratitude turned to long, distracting daydreams.

Blue skies of late summer carried you, walking the footpath,
bouncing, adjusting your hair.
That affection I found in watching you,
that same pang of hot despair.

A desire to find a kind of love few could ever teach,
where something unnamed becomes a tenderness we might reach.
A feeling that moves through me far too deeply.

That same late summer sun bronzes you as I hoped it would,
for that is how I need a woman to be,
majestic in the contrasts of her skin and mood.

Your likeness I have memorized, like an artist obsessed.
Your humor, I do not yet know.

Narrow hearts

Injustice usually fits itself into those narrow spaces inside people's hearts.
Where there are no values, and something feels better than anything.
We seek to even the scales when the case is closed.
we carry forth our claim of wrong doing.

The people and places that have done us wrong.
Become pet rivals we feed with our feelings of outrage.
Going back to see if there is a way to make them pay.
The intensity inside of your grievance has convinced you.

The issue that created the gripe you abuse clerk for.
Was made miles away by a person who doesn't speak to the public.
But you'll go down and get your pound of flesh and ruin everyone's day.
Because people's hearts can be so narrow that way.
 

sliding door quandry

 Come in and forget the past
I have lived and yet still crave living
Let me break you you open and fill you with new dreams
Ones that give flavor to your tastebuds

A feeling of pleasant hunger in your gut
Inexplicable wonder in your mind
As you stand there and calculate if you should enter
Don't pretend you are someone that you are not

leave excuses and inventions behind
The door doesn't open or close it slides
That neutrality turns me on
It's neither too impulsive nor passive

It's glass so I can drink coffee behind it
watch your face twitch as you wrestle with the decision
Unlock it if you step forward
And sigh in both relief and disappointment if you leave