Lotus Pond
Time and weather,
most surely frogs
and turtles, even
what the stars allow—
nocturnal search
and hunger
the equal of diurnal—
all, in their natural ways,
have ripped a new face
for the lotus pad,
October mask
staring back at anyone
who cares to stop,
perhaps beside the
campus clock reflected
Dali-like, this pond’s
bloom undone though
echoing still, alive
and well with its
syncopated pleasure
of croak and plop.
Snow Bread
In the half dark of dawn we wake
to slanted loaves of rooftops,
the rounded loaf of mailbox,
beneath the windows failed loaves
of evergreens, massive car-top loaves,
long baguettes of deck railing,
tiny loaves atop the birdfeeders,
the neat, small loaves of garden bricks,
misshapen loaves of limestone discards,
chain-held loaves of swing-set seats,
sheet-pan loaf of picnic table,
sandbox, that square loaf,
below the front door, stair-
step loaves, four in all,
sunrise pouring a buttery glaze.
Roger Pfingston has poems in recent issues of I-70 Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Shot Glass Journal, U.S. 1 Worksheets, and Last Call/The Anthology of Beer, Wine & Spirits Poetry from World Enough Writers. His chapbook, A Day Marked for Telling, is available from Finishing Line Press.
