ON AN OCTOBER DAY

TIDYING UP THE SHED

With eyes of fire and jaw set to concrete,

he strode from the woods

onto the beach, white-naked

but for the brown shorts and six-inch

hunting knife, determined

to do the work a man was called to do.

He stepped into the sloshing surf

where the dead loggerhead turtle lay,

with trophy shell

big as his wife’s washbasin. 

He cut and sawed and took one leg,

then another, pulled on the intestines,

long as his wife’s clothesline,

and knelt in the swirled, bloodstained

water and took knife to the bill-faced,

barnacled, black-eyed head

the nagging voice that said

he kept an untidy shed. 

A TASTE OF THE SUN

(from the book with the same title)

She had the adoration of the local men

and the latest issue of Vogue stuffed in her pocket

walking to the city

wanting more than she knew before

and the men

stood on the hill

yearning with intoxication

for the one walking away

and all

had a taste of the sun

seeking relief

from the pain of desire.

MY BROTHER’S CAR

The eleven-year-old, low mileage, garage kept car

I bought from my brother,

meticulous,

maintained on schedule,

oil changed every three thousand miles,

vacuumed weekly,

waxed every fourth Sunday,

hardly taken out in the rain,

never driven to the ocean where salt air lived

now sat in my garage

in fear.