A Poem by Reed Farrel Coleman

Jungfrau

by Reed Farrel Coleman

Once

we fed ourselves to the other

in careless chunks

across the chasm of night

in pieces like wedding cake—

nervous smiles, yellow frosting on her chin,

crumbs caught in the corners of my moustache.

A photographer shouts, “Hold it! That’s it. Perfect! Just like

that. Smile. No, big smile. Great!”

Flash

I recall

the maitre d’ counting heads like the years ahead of us.

Now we wear awkward tilted library books

wedged beneath our chins

where our hearts used to beat.

You must check for a pulse these nights

in the cast iron hum of the oil burner.

We feed our blankets to the center of the bed,

quilts uplifted like great mountain ranges:

The Andes some nights

some nights the Alps.

Tonight

the cat sleeps across the Jungfrau.

That means young maiden in German.

I’m pretty sure the cat couldn’t care,

looking only for heat trapped

on either side of the mountain

and maybe

pieces of cake.

Reed will appear at The Gazebo on 7/20.
http://www.reedcoleman.com/