John Grey

THE RECEPTION AFTER THE READING

Young women gathered around

the well-known poet.

The lesser-known male poets in attendance

stood in line for wine.

One of his admirers

brought his glass of cheap red to him.

He put it to one side

for he had books to sign.

In a city of Providence’s size,

I estimate there’d probably be

twenty to thirty females

in their twenties

willing to gush and sigh over

some guy who has a way with words,

is under forty

and is passable looking.

At least half of them

were in attendance that night.

The lesser-known poets attract

none of these women

Their poetry says as much.

PREGNANT TREE

There is no need

to stand by the swell of your belly,

feel the kick,

listen to the echo

crying deep inside you.

Instead, I watch

a tiny sparrow

clinging to a branch.

The thin, swaying limb

is the safest place extant.

Yet the bird covets sky.

In one brave extravagant gesture,

it flexes it wings,

lets go that bough,

soars out of the tree’s

thick green uterus.

The sparrow flies and flies,

just to bless that moment

it gets airborne.

THIS SEASON’S DEAD

A formless night

in winter,

as ephemeral flakes fall

and sleep-bound fishermen

enlighten the waves

on tomorrow's journey

in the presence

of decks rife with snow.

THE CICADAS

Seventeen years underground.

Seventeen years of such uncommon patience.

Then out they come for a summer, in our world,

sucking on sap of oak and willow,

laying eggs, vibrating their membranes,

shredding the air with their ticks, whines and buzzes.

Then seventeen more years underground.

As if deep in the dirt, stillness and silence, is the real life.

And the time up top is merely the dream,

the motor whir of a subconscious,

What we see is a cicada imagining itself as a cicada.

What we hear is the sound of an insect playing along.