Rona Shaffran

Beggars

Early on a winter morning
the amber fields race away
and hide in tall mist.

Trees line the roadside like starving beggars.
Naked arms,
their branches implore the heavens.

Oh sky, they plead,
one touch, one touch.

Loose Tooth

She washes up at her sink.
He shaves at his.
The bathroom mirror
between their two vanities
separates them.

When he reaches for the hairdryer
his arm grazes her right breast.
He turns to go back, but
halts and
kisses her.
Their teeth clash
through half-clenched lips.

The marriage
wobbles like a loose tooth,
painful when pushed,
hanging on
by threads of flesh.

Gold Cat

I saw a thin gold cat today
its fur knotted with rain.

And I recalled
a long-ago straw-coloured tom
huddled against the red brick
of my apartment building,
street-savvy,
face scarred and wary.

I stopped, reached out,
but he flicked claws at me,
then later that night stared hard
at the milk I brought him.

Every night I carried down the blue bowl of milk,
like a plea to all the indifferent gods
of that bleak and forlorn year,
until one twilight he deigned to drink
and I dared to touch him.

He let me take him in.
After he roamed my apartment,
I bathed him in warm water,
gingerly untangled his wet fur
and wrapped him in a wool blanket.

He claimed a spot by the heat vent
and purred me
a low lullaby.

Unseen

My love for you runs like a river in winter.
Swift currents churn
unseen
shielded by thick ice.

I want to reach out
to smooth back
your thinning hair.

But my disappointment in you,
studded with bitter anger,
layer upon frozen layer,
stops my hand.

Gulls

We soar on currents of air
like a flock of gulls,

on rising
the glowing white of my belly,

on falling
the blackness of your wings.

Unfurl

We awaken
stacked together
like sterling silver spoons,
hip entrusted to hip.

Late afternoon
I am your finger puppet,
ruled by your hand.

At day’s end
I unfurl over you in vivid color,
rippling like a flag.

At night
our bodies twist together
against a fragile rope.