The Shower

 

Surely something must be

removed to let the April

rain rejuvenate that shiver

no sliver of perfume

 

stands up to the season

secreting letting its secrets

be known in one fell swoop

set the hula hoop on fire

 

break the engagement

let Johnny Cash’s endless

assessment of falling

wash away with the rain.

 

 

The Bedside Book of Arcadia

 

 1.

Making love midday in a field

               to reveal

a place equally

real and unreal.

 

2.

Words on a scroll and birds

using air.

 

Those without partners

use wooden chairs

 

  3.

Perplexing divides that keep us

from each other’s heads.

 

There would have been documents

had we wed.

 

4.

If our hands, imagination and front

yards must be stained,

best by wild violets.

No quarter. Nothing gained.

 

 

When She Dances at Bonnaroo

 

she sees the big grey thunder

god’s prehistoric face.

 

She offers her little hand

skyward and smiles as if acknowledging

 

the end of a season or an era

or an epoch or a song.

 

She’s like a window in search

of something opaque,

 

a stone in search of an eye,

a key in search of a stone

 

or none of the above.

Like me, she has learned a few

 

little moves that pacify devils,

a little lather, rinse, repeat

 

that draws attention to her feet

where the infinite tosses loose change.

 

Armstrong

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three recent chapbooks: Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit and Cloudbank.