San Diego Poetry Annual -- 2009-10

Otherwise
        by Trish Dugger  ("poet laureate of Encinitas, CA")

Seems like a long time since
the waiter took my order,

disappeared behind a swinging door.
I rearrange silverware, move a fake

carnation in a dingy glass vase
to the neighboring vacant table,

take out my paperback. A few other
solitary diners, moored to separate

small islands, lift forks and eat in
a sea of silence. I dog-ear my page

as the waiter reappears with
soup du jour. Friday. Clam chowder.

Once it was otherwise. Fridays.
Me and Dino at Bully’s cruising for

seats at the low bar, shouting out
our orders over laughter and chatter.

Doubles. On the rocks. Extra olives.
I knew someday it would be

otherwise. When his ship sailed
or, as it happened, sank.

And a deep longing for gin soaked
olives sinks its teeth in me.


Letters
         by Rod Bradley

Her letters would cross the continent
with songs and perfumes,
I could feel her breath
between the lines
I could taste the ink
laid down in the sun
as moisture seeped between her thighs
every paragraph a kiss
each envelope wet with invitation
every stamp a map
to a meadow of moss . . .

One day I mailed myself back ?
she met me at an airport
we drove to a cabin
on a lost coast
and wrote a brief novel of love
on rented sheets:
I still remember the rocks
the trees
the sea mingling with her sighs . . .

Somewhere in a closet
the letters still read themselves
over and over
wondering where we are
trying to remember who we were . . .