By John Ripton

I remember the spring
you bought that first car,
a used black 1950 Ford with a torn ceiling,
light grey felt falling around the light.
You wanted to own a car,
to drive a car you owned,
to park it in the garage you built
where the outhouse used to be.

But the car never made it home on its own
and there was no money to fix it.
So it sat there in the driveway
until summer dust turned it grey,
the grey I see reflected in the window
where my thoughts retreat this morning.

You could do it yourself —
take that car apart,
grind the valves by hand,
the motor that one evening blew
the sun into the moon
and left you penniless,
half–shamed, a man who walked
two miles into Lewiston with your last dime
and made a collect call to your wife’s uncle
to come get us on northbound 95
at an outcropping of granite.

I’ve never forgotten that rock,
rich in veins, in mica,
thrust to the surface long before we
broke down, a hole in the motor,
a hole in a car you’d bought that same day
for two hundred dollars in Massachusetts,
a rod shot through the engine,
a dent in the hood half–way home.

Now, in the silver shell of an open garage door
I see you over the fender of that black 1950 Ford
with its hood lifted, its dark greasy maw dead and cold,
but hungry enough to eat you alive.
In the shadows of the garage you took apart
that 1950 Ford
bolt by bolt, pealed half–burned gaskets
with old steel scrapers,
every last indignity sanded down to a shine,
every word of a used car dealer damned
until that 1950 Ford ran smooth again.

By Bruce Pratt

Catherine Blake’s Lament
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Catherine heard old Blake’s roaring in the night,
his heart beating “tiger tiger burning bright,”
as up in the corner he spied Swedenborg and Jesus.
“William,” she cooed from deep in their bed
“I’m naked from my soles to the top of my head,
Dear Blake come it’s time to please us.”

His soul sang, a hammer on a forge,
imagination raging and rising in his gorge,
the way wind in our hearts can tease us.
Catherine cried, “The warming stones grow cold
bring me the magic of your body to hold,
Dear Blake come, it’s time to please us.”

“Come now ere I slip on my night dress,
and storm down that gloried road of excess,
heft me with imagination let mystery lead us,
to the fire behind your dry weary eyes,
the muscle pulsing in your tiger’s thighs.
Dear Blake come, it’s time to please us.”

“I believe in your visions that I cannot see,
all your brilliant memorable fancies,
the proverbs you have taught that free us,
to be naked in the day in our garden
without charge or call for pardon.
Dear Blake come, it’s time to please us.”

“So let the sweet serpent’s whisper lave your ear,
the one who taught you to conquer our fear,
the one who conjures dear Moses and Jesus,
the ones whose wisdom is here to feed us.”

By Bruce Pratt

So, this place is heaven on earth
and you created all of it,
and I’m made in your image,
and Eve, oh my God, Eve
is made in what?
Your woman’s image?
My Lord what is she like?

Eve, man Eve, Eve all the time
fire always roaring in me,
eyes seared by light, drinking those
perfect arms and legs and breasts
and feet and hands and hair.

Her nose, her eyes, and her mouth
sweet twenty–four seven with fruit,
and the sun–flash of white teeth,
soft tongue like that snake
that hangs around the base of that tree
testing the taste of the wind and
this garden. Lord, is how big?

Must be a bower where we can get a little
privacy, you know a place to let out
a wild scream at least once in a while?

By Gerald McCarthy

When the gray sweeps in
and it starts —
the quiet sound grows
I see you clearly then —
walking down the stone
stairs, your hair shining
in fading light,
your dark hair glows
with the rain
and still, and still
I cannot let go —
I fall and get up
and there in the distance
the sea
glistens with rain
with its silver coins
its light —
and you, there
along the rail, still
walking down toward
me, toward wherever
we were or are now —
lost, found, lost again
in the mist rising,
and morning rain
like memory, like a sudden
rush of tears and joy
and hope.