Cecil Vortex

Signify

by

I signed a lot of stuff today
and I don’t mean to brag
but no.
I do.
It was the way
I curved that capital “C” in Cecil.
and looped the “l.”
My graceful scoop.
The pen’s hurled weight.
Like I was piloting
a space plane
made of jet black ink.

I’ll draw the hair

by

If we’re all drawing a face together
I don’t want to draw the mouth.
I’ll draw the hair —
just lines, loose and easy.
Or the eyes.
But not the lips.
The way they curve and join
and hold back
her teeth.
Don’t make me draw the lips.

Clown shoes

by

I found this spam comment on a friend’s site yesterday (minus the line breaks). I’ve swapped out the thing they were selling and replaced it with “clown shoes” because, well, I don’t want to sell their stuff.
But I loved this spam comment. And I thought you might too:
“Clown Shoes said…
Have you seen
any information
on personalized baby clown shoes?
I just have
not had the best results
when blog surfing today.
Anywho
back to my endless search
for personalized
clown shoes.”

Lost

by 
Forgot an old friend's name tonight. I
thought it was "David Shapiro,
of Kansas" but it's not, is it?
It's something else, something
equally
common
unsearchable.
Or maybe it is?
Lordy lordy I've
lost all
confidence.

Tuscan holiday

by

Everything is black and white here.
They shine bright lights on us and shout
“Passports? ID? What is your country?”
We moan and
claw at our eyes with fingers
cracked and crooked.
Sometimes the light is swung about and
I think I see a form, stout — squat — three arms?
This is Florence. They
speak English here too.

Devil

by

What our crazy neighbor said to my wife the other night
not realizing that my wife is
“the woman before you”
and that we’d recently fixed the porch light,
she said:
“I’m glad you’re here
because the woman
before you
was a devil
they lived in darkness
and you know about darkness.”