Peotry Excerpts

LOVE SONNET

My love is like the Shostakovich Preludes

Opus 34, his melody

a lilting line that spins and slips away

to reappear behind a minor key,

or tangled in the cord that lifts the blinds

upon a bright, chromatic city view—

or dark and brooding night—Whate’er he finds

is made a dance: Waltz of a Drunken Crew,

Three-Legged Polka—joyous dissonance

in sudden tantrums of hilarity,

then liquid measures of sweet resonance

and tonic depth—a wild complexity

of twenty-four dimensions, half above

and half below G-flat: Such is my love.

D. R. Goodman

ADORED

Today you told me you adored me—

not liked, or loved, admired,

or felt obligated to—

but adored.

All day, I got to walk around knowing I was

adored.

It felt like silk, slippery around me.

It teased my tongue

like champagne.

It smelled like a tub of jasmine

and rose petals.

I understood luxury—

the longing to be wrapped in furs and jewels—

almost sinful.

Later, you caught me next to

the washing machine, my hair

pinned up, wearing my old cutoff shorts.

Instead of jasmine and roses,

we had the rich, full smell

of sweat and laundry detergent,

the screen door rocking softly

as it beckoned

to the flowered wind.

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