Tobi Cogswell
Precision Excision
To concentrate is to see the points behind the picture
human Darwinism at its most woeful.
Slivers of moments – the edge of the bread,
shard from the champagne flute,
salt sprayed in patterns
shockingly violent and destructive.
Conversation becomes obtuse and unavailable.
Words are extracted from their meanings and left to dangle
like hearing the chimes but not the wind.
A scalpel is silent.
Weeping behind windows is silent.
Microscopes present mites wiggling in mattresses,
televisions broadcast snow.
Forehead neon with focus
hack the weeds that creep between irregularities,
smell the fuchsia oozing out of cracks the color
of prison walls.
II
The tipping point.
It is a decision to be made.
The screws are either parallel or perpendicular -
Surf the fulcrum of status quo,
fall down the hole, it has potential for implication.
Arms up in surrender or out in embrace
the expectations determine the outcome.
The smell of slick magazine curdles
while the clock ticks
while the angry boy cries
while the light explodes in a blistering display
while the washer cycles
while the spider spins its web
which way do you go
which way do you go
when people give up
how do they not die?
Pantoum Gone Wrong
I will take a vodka tonic and some chips
please tell me that my smile lights up the sky
make me blush and make me think of you
even if tomorrow I’ll be asking myself why
and kicking myself for being so stupid.
I will know you are lying but believe you anyway
I will only halfway question your motives and sincerity
wearing my heart with longing for our conversations
I will look for you and I will find you.
It makes me want to taunt you and test you
all the time my leg inching closer to yours
I flirt with an eye to mapping your limitations
my agenda is one of maximum sensations - I
don’t know if you have an agenda.
A kiss in the old days was a ticket to freedom
now most encounters lead to a chasm of
disappointment and emptiness
Lord knows, I carry my own share of baggage
disheveled and dangerous I order another drink
Please find me beautiful, I have a passion for you
make me blush and make me think of you fondly, but
Lord knows, I carry my own share of baggage
so I will settle for vodka tonic and chips.
A Quiet Kiss
Let’s kiss under the bridge
a quiet kiss, to see if we fit.
Cars rumble overhead, an
occasional muffler vibrates
against our ears, let’s pull
our scarves up around our necks,
your hands at your sides me
holding my umbrella, the
cavernous pod protecting us
from drops from above, the
muddy confluence of the street,
from people rushing toward
their day, maybe checking their
watches but always late, their
mouths turned down in hurried
frowns, the kind of people you
never want to talk to when they’re
behind you in line or when you
want them to pull up just a few feet
so you can get into the left-turn
lane behind them and they are
just frowning with the radio, frowning
into the mirror and you feel so sorry
for them and so lucky that your
mouth lands naturally in a smile,
even when you’re sad, even when the
crows of nightmares come to perch
on the wires of your dreams and no
one would know because you seem
to be smiling and that is just wonderful.
Let’s kiss under the bridge
a gentle kiss, tasting our tastes,
testing the safety of us two.
We are shrouded within the fairy tale,
the banners of my umbrella happy with
harlequin diamonds and jingling
bells, the fabric matching your tie
so much that you must take the
umbrella home, but not until
we are done with it, until we each
look into the eyes of the other
and read the same language, until
our breath is a snow dome shaken
on Christmas morning,
finally settling to reveal
a lovely setting where two people
like you and me are the cake toppers
in fantasyland. I want to be a
weather girl to plan for days like this,
I want to study the marine layer and
low pressure systems to find
our best times for experimentation.
What a wonder to be
hiding under the bridge with you
in the drizzle, on a workday, and
no one knows who we are or where we are.
I want us to have the best chance.
Let’s kiss under the bridge
a tiny kiss, then write me
a poem of you, tell me a secret,
your hands at your sides me
holding my umbrella.
We feel only our own hearts
on this day but this is the
day that will change us
forever, we either fit or
we don’t. We may be
a study in polar opposites,
two alpha magnets
pushing for the right of way but
I don’t get that impression,
I see a yielding in you and
that makes it safe for me
to bend a bit. And when the rain
has stopped, I hand you my
harlequin protector that matches
your tie, that you must have to
remember this day with, to
remember me, and you walk
away for the moment, a silhouette of
wide shoulders in a dark suit,
but not forever.
Lapses and Absences
She takes her heart out
holds it in her palms
she can still draw breath
the heart defending her
but not defining her
she feels like the heron
landing on a perfect lake
with perfect light, no language
to speak of just being.
She looks in wonder at it
beating there, palms up
in holy supplication
she can only see the hint of hands
beneath her fragile insides
turned and laid bare.
She is loved. She is lost.
She has loved and lost.
She cannot bear to acknowledge grief,
rage with anger or tally up the losses,
she merely holds her heart with perfect posture
out of curiosity and defense
the missing part of her soul
holding her close.
And so she flies, her migration
on the wind she always
threatened to escape.
She wears her bruises
like beauty marks,
does not focus on them,
does not acknowledge them.
Absence merely means presence
somewhere else, and home
can be anywhere.
Saturday Afternoon
Down the long aisle he walks
past beans, soup, rice, pasta,
canned things better bought fresh
along the outer edges, toward the
woman at the end scooping
chocolate covered peanuts into
a small plastic bag. He sees her
look up he says hello
she says hello back. Emboldened
he says how are you she says
fine how ‘bout yourself he says
fine and keeps walking.
She sees the cane in his cart,
notices a small limp as he moves on
to the dairy aisle, she doesn’t know if
it’s a permanent affliction or the result
of some dramatic injury. He feels
handsome, and successful that she spoke
to him even though he is in disrepair. She thinks
about how she cannot feel her toes,
how we all bear one thing or another she feels
pretty, and desirable because he spoke to her.
She looks for him again but she has a long list, he
must have had a short list or else she shops
from right to left and he from left to right, she
does not enjoy further banter.
She thinks she sees him in the parking lot they
both drive Hondas, a coincidence to be commented on
but she doesn’t continue the conversation, it will
most probably lead to disappointment.
The handsome man and desirable woman
drive away separately, both congratulating themselves
on a successful shopping excursion.
Tobi Cogswell lives in Southern
California. She reads at various
venues in the Los Angeles area.
Her work can be read in Poetic
Diversity, Literary Angles, the
Anthology of Poetic Diversity, Red
River Review, Shemom, Andwerve
and the San Gabriel Valley Poetry
Journal. She also has a chapbook
entitled Sanity Among the
Wildflowers.