Two Poems

FALL

Sicily: light through clouds like stale
        Of horses, thick air stale.

Vigilant olive trees, as lean
       As old fishermen, lean

Grimly into the coming fall.
      Within days rain must fall.

*

Conquistadors on Vespas coast
      Down to the boastful coast

Foresworn to force each day to last
      As if it were the last.

*

The lifeguard with his left hand waves
      From the edge of the waves,

Then with his right as if the left
      Had no conviction left.

(He embodies symmetry: even
     His oddity is even.)

*

Baring each armpit to the air
...