Late August Afternoon
on the Porch Reading Charles Simic
By Anthony DeGregorio
For
years I have regularly dreamed of elopement with a forest.
Our fall into each
other’s soul as soundless as it is furtive.
First
and foremost we’d begin our new life
Far away, hidden
from everyone
Who
would do us wrong. Light years from every maleficent essence.
No longer would I
look over my shoulder
For
the various debt collectors I seem to attract
To whom by their
calculations at least
I am
in arrears on payments, goods, and
Promised personal
services of all sorts.
No longer
would she fear the stray lightning bolt
Threatening to demolish
the innocents within and beneath her trees.
We
are quite well matched.
It is only
as Christmas approaches that I turn melancholic.
Drawn
to run up further huge debts
Stemming
from obsessive generosity and good will.
Charging my life
away to department stores and online offers.
Not
to mention a rash of TV enticements,
Tempting with lifelong
installment plans.
And
she, though she’ll be hesitant to admit it at first,
Secretly awaits a
family with a bow saw
Pursuing
that perfect tree for their bare living room
To shelter all the
beautifully wrapped gifts
And
curtain the 5 stockings hung, anticipating
The eager hands of
children and impatient spirits
Craving
chocolate, various states of consciousness,
Socks, and revelations.
Yes.
But
please know we both embrace sacrifice.
We realize our dreams
are only worth dreaming
If we
never wake up, and are
Thereby
never disappointed again.
Alligator
by Anthony DeGregorio
I dreamed there was
an alligator in the house. Not this house, my childhood home. By the back door in the kitchen leading to the backyard. He stood with
me at my side, both of us looking out over the rock littered dirt and grass patches, the
grounds of our games and adventures. The
1/8 acre slanted at a precarious angle leading beyond suburbia’s oblivion, mapping
the path he had travelled to get to my house and would retrace to return to nowhere. For a moment we were pals staring into the abyss
of the future before we realized we could not be together like that. Could not peer either into unshared memory of decades ago when a prehistoric-looking
creature could have been my companion and the fear of his nature never entered my
mind.
Anthony
DeGregorio’s writing has appeared or is scheduled to appear in various publications,
including Libre, Abandoned Mine, Italian America Magazine, Aromatica
Poetica, Bloom, Nowhere, Wales Haiku Journal, Polu Texni,
and So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.
He taught writing at Manhattanville College
for twenty years, and in another life or two or three he worked in various capacities for
the Department of Social Services, much of that time while teaching at night. Prior to
that is anyone’s guess, but don’t let that stop you.
