Vacation In The Inner State

Vacation In The Inner State

There was a singe of summer
barbecue as something warmed
her, sipping. There was no curfew
on desire, in her wineglass,
or outdoors.

She scanned the span of backyard
grass, the unshaved blades:
her ocean, shattered
tiles: her shore.

Her body waves to bathing
suits never bought, only savoured
on a screen: now her mind.
No money meant a richness
grew, in spite, as did appetite

For one she writes. He likes
men. She craves
him, still. For in exchange, words
are close. Her husband’s

Touch is otiose, while her beloved
prose projects
a tenderness that sculpts
deserted sands
to ecstatic glass within her.

The Red Desert

red desert 3

The Red Desert
*after Antonioni

There is a mind inside an island. By the brim

Of her shore, a boy culls from the sand; a ship,
Unmanned, scores the gulled coast
While cormorants repose on the glittering rose.

From the ocean, Poseidon is goading the shore.
Drops spray the boy’s back. He is shelled
To attack; his searching turns in; becomes

An internal thing. Friulian lyrics
Smooth crests from within. Who sings
Dialectic, in dialect unseen?

It is the island; it is everything.

This poem appeared previously on Cosmoetica under the pseudonym Anthony Zanetti.