Three Poems by Joanna M. Weston

Going Home

story is
an evening
by the campfire

smoke lying
on the fields
of an old farm

stream of traffic
under the bridge

a story is you
and I
going home




My Friend Marietta

I caught a glimpse of her
a week ago last Tuesday
glissading down-slope
on flattened cardboard box
scarlet scarf streaming
voice swirling opera
through lime-green snowflakes

we met on the midnight bus
I sucked an orange popsicle
she radio clamped to one ear
Beatles belting a yellow submarine
down the road beside her

I wanted to discuss form poetry
but she ducked into a truck stop
seemed she preferred coffee
on the run without ode or rhyme

looked up from diner menu
saw her strumming guitar
down Topaz Street clicking
castanets to drown questions
trailing her lamp-lit shadow




Prevarication

turn out of the driveway
past a bank of daisies
watch ants climb tree-trunk
a robin pull worms drive down
to the corner turn right
instead of left because a yellow
towel hangs on a gate-post
and I have to find out why

it's there the lame man
explains to alert
a friend that his bed-ridden
wife needs a haircut I reverse
go on my way brake
for three children chasing
a tennis ball middle
of the block    pause
at the top of hill
to admire double rainbow

watch cat stalk    pounce
a gull circles school-yard
rises as two crows dive to peck
litter in ditch I pull
into the parking lot take
a newspaper from kiosk
surprised by headline
"taxes to be reduced"
arrive late at dentist

Joanna M. Weston is married, has two cats, multiple spiders, a herd of deer, and two derelict hen houses.  Her middle-reader, Those Blue Shoes, was published by Clarity House Press, and her poetry, A Summer Father, was published by Frontenac House of Calgary.  Her eBooks can be found at her blog:  http://www.1960willowtree.wordpress.com/