toward midnight

she wore impatience
barely assembled…
jeans, sandals, t-shirt
brush swiped hair

there’d been years
for logos, labels
mirror glances
suntan afternoons

now urgency
set rhythms…
three friends gone…
distressing vacancies

she still had patience
with nostalgia…
yet sought primary colors
not pastels

she read books…poetry
in draughts…to inebriation…
paused…when honest people
wrestled with ideas

kept awake past midnight
to stay closing of the light

Bonnie Marshall

Photo Credit: botanizing-flanerie

Galatea Steps Down

Galatea Steps Down

Grief showers
chilled her
to immobility
there in the middle
of a crowded city sidewalk.
I’m lost without him.
     Don’t know where I’m going.

No medical emergency,
it was a sorrow spell
where street sounds
turned to hissing
a static in the senses.
     I cannot move…
…like a statue…like Galatea.

Now, for this living Galatea
there was no longer
a Pygmalion
to smooth her into life
with his strong, warm hands.
Is this what dying is?
     Am I invisible?

“WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING, LADY!”

The rough jostle
shook her mind
back to awareness,
and city sounds and colors
merged to coherency.

She resumed walking.
     Steps…just my steps.
     I’m taking steps…
        down from the pedestal.

Bonnie Marshall