Small Hours, Melanoma, Calling The Minnows

by David Cazden

Small Hours

Some nights the spirits cling
like water in the kettle.

3:15 am.
My eyes are hour hands
extended, the lashes flat,
half-lidded.

In the rough wool quilt
of a December sky,
you sleep—only a cheek—peach
skin—peeking through.
Here sunlight
mottled you red

where your mother pulled
you down the rainswept streets—
or a lover
moved through an orchard
like a first fall wind.

You sigh into the pillows.
In the kitchen
our tea mellows in the cups,
the scent of almond lingers
and I imagine
the insides of the peach pits,
their dark roughness
stuck upon my tongue.

Melanoma

Every month the doctors check
each stretch of her,
down to the paper ribbons
wound between the toes—

But I see only skin
the color of mocha,
freckles of cinnamon and clove.

As auburn hair falls upon the table
she tells me how they watch
the neck, the elbows, the delta
of the back
where a cool rain pours
and I ask
can I see the scar

so she pulls a sleeve away
from the center of her arm
revealing seared streaked skin
the color of pork
left on the barbeque.

This is the opposite
of what a kiss might do,
an unraveling of flesh,
the threads tied down.

She stares at me through glasses
thick as bowls of water.
At twenty five she already talks
beyond the afternoon. And after

our awkward conversation
I return to editing her poem,
erasing a few lines,
as if my hands could change
a story not my own.

Calling The Minnows

Anyone you could find
you brought to the fishpond.
You surprised them
by painting crosses on the tips of the clover,
by fishing for minnows,
drawing them up on a slender line.

They always laughed at your boldness
until the silver hook stuck.
They would fight
the barbs tugging their gills.
They tried to leap in the dark
belly of the pond.
But you were insistent, unhurried.

You knew a small, blind fish
swam inside every man,
that there was the thought of a tree
in every tree, that the idea of the minnow
was only forgotten, and would slowly emerge,
flash and squirm up the thread
of your voice, the invisible line.

Once, you went alone to the fishpond
and found the idea of yourself
walking out of its flesh,
out of your dress as you moved.

You explored the weeds, pond side.
Plovers' high knees plowed the edge-waves
and water lapped lavender flowers.
You stretched over the banks,
feet in the mud and algae blooms,
watching hundreds of minnows
flip like coins in the sun, tangling your hair,
calling whatever swam below,
asking the world to swallow you whole.

These are selections from David Cazden's first full length collection, Moving Picture, published by Word Press and available through Amazon.com or via paypal or mail by emailing the author at ratts@iglou.com.

David Cazden received an Engineering degree from the University of  Kentucky in 1981, where he won the Danzler award for creative writing.  Shortly after graduating, he took a 20 year hiatus from poetry, ran his own computer manufacturing business, designed loudspeakers and worked as an engineer in San Diego. He now lives in Lexington, Kentucky where he  is Poetry Editor of Miller's Pond magazine. His poetry has recently appeared in magazines such as Connecticut Review, Rattle, and Midwest  Quarterly and he has been anthologized in The Best Of Wind and The  Alsop Review.