MORNING TREK
by Michael Keshigian
He rarely has nights when he can sleep
deep
beneath the comforter
and curl himself back
into
the security of childhood
upon the twin bed next to
his brother,
a life he can barely remember.
His
parents have since departed
for that permanent slumber,
touching hands forever
in a room with no view, now distant and deaf
to
the whimper of nightmares
that occasionally still
startle him awake,
instilling restlessness
in the milk-white
light of dawn.
The trembling rays of sun
split the pines
on these cool summer morns
then splinter the window
of
his shaded bedroom
and on the days when calm
abandons him,
he rises to walk.
At the docks, it
soothes him
to see giant pines still asleep in their bark,
the
dreamless vegetation, unscarred
by human steps,
swaying in the early breeze
as the huge ball of fire ignites
the
watery horizon with flames
that abruptly shatter the
darkness
about the sleeping lake homes.
The
loons have ceased lamenting.
Silently, he thanks the
crystal spirit of summer
for the comforting yellow gift of morning.
Soon
houses blink their windows open,
a motor roars
across the lake
and in the distance
a chimney raises
its smoky arms skyward.
The forest absorbs night as light walks
the
mulch paths toward day.
He turns homeward, listens
to his own footsteps,
no longer in search of himself.
FLIRT
by Michael Keshigian
A propellant
when she
smiles,
she kindles a flame
as
she strokes my hair,
kisses my cheek,
or grasps my hand
and giggles.
I blush though
my eyes reflect
the fever she
incites,
even as she speaks
in riddles and
feels
ungainly in my arms.
I am victim of her
charms,
clever as a Mozart symphony
minus the finale.
NARRATION
by Michael Keshigian
The other men from town
attempted to
entice her with idle bravado,
offered to buy her drinks, asked for a dance,
in their flamboyant outfits garnered with gold.
He
watched them stare intensely,
savage glances saying more
than hello,
let them huddle around her
and compete for
attention.
He bid his time in a faraway corner
where
smoke-filled air stained his eyes
and wrote on a pad
from his pocket,
sensations he would one day read to her,
when
the thoughts were coherent
and courage allowed him
to
rouse her from ordinary
into the extraordinary ardor
of his verse
through the open doors of his heart.
He
would be the different one,
the flushed eccentric with
common clothes
and a black notebook, thick with words
she
had never heard before.
He would be the charming
misfit
who, in a warm summer eve’s breeze,
will
capture her affection with a narrative
it took so many
nights to contrive.
Michael
Keshigian is the author of 14 poetry collections and has
recently been published in the Comstock Review, Young Ravens Literary Review,
Studio One, Smoky Quartz, and Jerry Jazz Musician. He has been nominated
seven times for the Pushcart Prize and three times for Best of The Net.
