the poetry knook, the poetry of stephen m. james

Poems with the tag ‘eyes’

She reads road signs (in love with potential)

time is not what seniors have, I think
of classroom teaching
not wild, kinky sex when gazing
into the telescope of time
and those eyes,
I draw lines connecting now and potential
hopefully parallel to I:
fitting seventeen sides into an eighteen sided hole
and eighteen into
nein* teen, because I’m an adult.


Words: $.99/lb.

gone are the gourds and
killed is the kale,
squashed are the spouts
and beet are the beans
for you’ve dived into an endive,
done what you’ve mustard
and produced a leek in our potato eyes
dripping to our collards,
thought this might not be your cucumber
to return to peachland,
but it t’was.
your wit will be rooted in us and
I’d cauliflower a weed next to you any spring,
seemed like last year was a short harvest,
but what else shallot I do?
tomato is another day, yes,
but doesn’t asparagus the burden of
carrotting you in memory but not in our salad,
even when the chards settle
and we follow your furrow to our own garden.



© 1993-2025 by Stephen M. James.