Three Poems

Wallace Barker

March and April

grey dawn across the city when

i remember the death of my brother the artist

and his little cemetery plot in onion creek

and how he played harmonica

i see a hawk following my car down the interstate

it soars over me then dips below the hills

the morning in april when my brother was born

and the morning in march when my brother died

he was not yet 20 years old and since that morning

more years have passed

than he ever even lived but

he will forever be older than me

in my mind and of course

more intelligent and worldly

and skillful in all things

i saw a heron tiptoe through the shallow

part of the lake on this powder morning

it moved and then it was still for longer

than i could maintain focus

it seemed as if it was frozen there

and could remain so forever

completely outside time and oblivious to my aging

Alicia

today my love for you

is like a balloon blown up

really big but also

that isn't exactly what i want to say

i saw two squirrels playing in the lawn

and thought of you i saw

a squirrel on its hind legs

shelling and eating a pecan

with its little hands and

i thought of you

the sky is blue and it's sunny

this summer day and i will

ride my bike to work today

i put on a blue short-sleeve

collared shirt and my whiskers

are a little long and i felt excited

because i thought i looked handsome

i hoped you would think i look handsome

because i only experience myself

or at least my strongest perception of myself is

thru the lens of what you might be thinking about me

and i imagine what you might be thinking about me

all the time.

Assignation

The idiotic letters I wrote in response

To her emails with their "insightful" portraits.

Her commentary on all these prominent figures

So elegant, so intelligent.

I fumbled back overwrought praise and ideas

That were half-formed at best but she

Humored me and pretended my ramblings

Were meaningful and that is how I knew

She liked me more than other people.

On the Las Vegas strip we were talking about

Meeting in person and how that differs

So much from meeting people online.

The lights from the casinos winked off and on

In the otherwise complete desert darkness.

I stood alone in front of colored fountains

Leaning against the balustrade.

I peered down into my glow screen

Tapping out a message

"Let's not meet. Let's just

keep it this way."

Wallace Barker lives in Austin, Texas. He has been published in Neutral Spaces, Reality Hands, Back Patio Press and Philosophical Idiot. More of his work can be found at wallacebarker.com.