A Blessed May Day

So what day is it? May 3rd.
April showers are turned off at the faucet.
The sun is returning the blood to my cheeks.
The woman beside me is as lush
as new bloomed cyclamen, as hardy too.
My thoughts are busy, speedy, like interstates.

So we go for a drive.
Windows open, new corn fields
don’t pass us but they sure do keep up.
Hair flying back, spines in concord…
grief, where did you go?
We pass farmers, cyclists,
a seventy year old jogger with leg veins like bones.

A crossroads. Which way?
Three choices… no make that ten thousand.

Left seems good enough.
Used to be the devil’s path,
now it leads to a tiny village.
We buy jams from strangers.
And lemonade from a child’s hand.
So what day is it?
A day when such eccentricities are allowed.
May 3rd it says minutely on my watch.
That’s why it’s strapped to my wrist and not my heart.

Too bad this has to end. Home now.
And the clouds are thickening, grow darker.
Rain is in the forecast though never in mine.
Still, it’s May 3rd on the couch,
with the TV on, sprinkles down window,
bigger globs on roof.
It’s May 3rd up to bed and soft sheets and pillows.
Don’t sleep, I beg you,
until the last mile is done,
the jams put away, the lemonade
staggers senseless from the tongue.

***

The Perfect Woman

When in my company,
her eyes are only for me.

When I have to leave her
for another engagement
she is disappointed enough
for me to regret leaving
but not so much
that I’m obliged to stay.

Her cleanliness
gives godliness
a run for its money.

Her shoulders and her waist
provide for equal opportunity hugging.

She can beat me in some things
but not in everything.

She’s sexy and comfortable
in the same breath.

Her sighs are restricted
to between the sheets.

She reads the sections
of the Sunday newspaper
that I don’t.
Then we amiably switch.

She likes some music that I adore
and some that I despise.

Her perfumes have a sense of occasion.

She can love a man
even if he makes lists.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Washington Square Review, and Floyd County Moonshine. Latest books, Covert, Memory Outside The Head, and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Open Ceilings.