by Lois Levinson
The day of the two-foot snowstorm (was it in March?),
the patio chairs filled with broad-shouldered,
square-headed snow guests decked out all in white,
leaning slightly forward, engaged in animated conversation,
old friends seated around a table laid in a thick damask,
and, though they were chilled, I could sense their sparkle,
the heat they generated, and I envied them, yearned to join
in the effortless ambiance of melodious babble.
Then the sun came out, and, like vanilla snow cones
on a summer day, they began to puddle.
I grieved their meltdown, the inevitable subsiding,
as though I needed more proof of impermanence.
*
But now it is May, and, like a cicada emerging
from a seventeen-year burial, I am ravenous
for your company. Dare we meet for coffee?
I’ll put on that crimson silk scarf, the one whose ends flow
behind me like soaring wings. I’ll dust off my red shoes,
find my old purse, drive the disconcertingly unfamiliar streets
to our favorite coffee place and greet you with a hug.
We will sit down at an outdoor table with our cappuccinos,
shake off our cobwebbed cloaks of isolation
and blink in this new brightness, a bit bewildered
by the screenless sight and sound of one another.
Lois Levinson is the author of Before It All Vanishes, and a chapbook, Crane Dance, both published by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in Global Poemic, Canary Journal, Gyroscope, The Literary Nest, Cloudbank and other journals. She lives in Denver, Colorado where she’s gotten through the past year by writing poetry and watching birds. Liz Baron is an artist and restaurateur who lives in Texas by way of New York City. She and her husband, Jim, founded, own and operate four Mexican-Southwestern restaurants. She got her Bachelor of Fine Art from Pratt Institute but stopped painting when restaurant work and family life consumed most of her time. She is grateful to the online art classes of Sketchbook Skool that helped her regain the joy of a regular art practice.
Global Poemic 