The Garden Everlasting
by MAX HJORTSBERG
Waiting outside a service station
she noticed a woman watering flowers across the street.
The vibrant colors glowed in the morning sun.
She looked closer and saw
the housewife was actually tending
to thousands of colored flames
dancing in the breeze,
reflecting in the windows of the house.
She had never seen so many colors.
A feeling of peace relaxed her eyes
as she walked across the street,
gravel crunching under each step
like keys turning in locks.
She kneeled in that garden burning
until the startled housewife asked,
can I help you?
She awkwardly walked back across the street
looking over her shoulder.
What the hell were you doing
kneeling in that woman’s garden?
he asked as she got back into the car.
When we die, she said,
there will be a garden like that one
and all of our suffering will become
many colors of jittery light,
little flowers of fire burning
like a chorus of railroad lanterns.
Forever Afternoon
by MAX HJORTSBERG
She waited for him
in the afternoon sun
moving slowly across the bedspread
where she lay in her dressing gown,
the heat inspiring laziness
like the wind culling thistle seeds aloft;
her clothing could wait until evening.
In her languid oblivion of radio song
and ice water
she took the pen and inkwell
and on her belly below her navel
drew the jawbone of an ass.
A surprise for him
later
when she knew he’d want her
and wouldn’t ask.
Midnight on the Straightaway
by MAX HJORTSBERG
The black sedan barreled down
the state highway
pushing the grasses on the
shoulder over in its wake.
She was behind the wheel
smoking a cigarette slowly
letting the ash grow long
like a childhood memory
about swimming in a lake
for the first time
until it fell to the floorboard
under its own weight.
He lay in the backseat,
a look of wonder in his eyes
as he watched the moon
through the rear window.
It was nights like these
when they would drive until dawn
through the empty back roads
of America,
nothing but the sound of the motor,
the hum of the tires on gravel and
the whistle of wind
resonating like a prayer,
that the present touched the future.
Max Hjortsberg grew up in Montana’s Paradise Valley and now lives in Livingston with his wife and son. He is the author of Bonnie & Clyde (An American Daydream) published by Finishing Line Press, from which these poems were selected. His website is http://www.errantpoet.com.
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