Two Poems

Today two poems:

1.
Sorrow

I want to please you, he said.
Pain mixed in her mind.

A long ago day on a beach when their
fingers never quite touched.

A tear in her side.
The old whiplash still.

And last night.
Last night at the party,

All casual and laughing friends,
Last night, when he and his lover

(her best friend) – said,
over the chocolate cake

with public, and private
meanings: I love you.
Jo Ann Lordahl

2.
Letter to a New Friend

Dear Bob: Don’t leave me on a casual
beach and ask me to write you a poem. It’s
essential to know requesting poems from poets
guarantees no results. They can’t, even
if they would – got to be free. That
pale white upside down moon over the green
beach, the hard wind blowing dead to the
waves, flaming spume high over my mind is
what interests me. Fluff from the beach,
synchronized pelicans, the couple
holding hands into dunes, the high-bridged boat
trolling the deep water line and seven
more brown-winged poems of pelicans.
A jet cutting slices of sky. Sand blowing
the beach like fog, three gulls
chasing puffed white seeds in the wind going
into the wild sea. Even the sand on my
toes interests me more than writing.
Stay away forever. At the beach my heart
comes home. I’ll never write you a poem.
Jo Ann Lordahl