The Innisfree Poetry Journal
www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Kathi Wolfe


LYING HERE IN THESE FIERCE PAJAMAS

after E. B. White

I'm stage struck when you glide,
like Grace Kelly checking out
the murder scene without wrinkling
her latest dress from Paris,
through the rear window
of my champagne-soaked dreams.
I don't want to be snowed
under the inelegant ice
of January, the reams
of papers prancing on my desk,
the news of war pounding
like a word worm in my head.
I want to dance with you
in our Cole Porter world
where anything goes except disaster
and the common currency is laughter.
You remind me,
that was another movie,
we're not dressed for it now.


YELLOW TULIPS

When I'm sweaty, like cotton candy
in the seventh inning stretch
of the final game of the World Series,
out-of-tune, like a piano
too drunk to debut in Carnegie Hall,
empty as a soothsayer with no truth,
frightened as glass afraid to shatter,
when the dead yellow tulips remind
me that we will all turn to dust,
I think of you, playing with my hair
three weeks before you died.
The soft white clouds, you said,
will always be there.
Not much comfort. But enough.


TOUCH TONE
for Louis Braille

My fingertips bleed.
I'm on a first date
in hell,
holding hands
with your
cranky-edged dots,
who want
no new members
in their secret society.
Crawling
through your night-writing
to read
"Mary had a little lamb"
is like climbing up
a cliff
barefoot
backwards.
Still,
I must
crack your code
or forget
myself.


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