The Zingara Project

Tag: The Main Street Rag

  • Meeting My Old Boyfriend after Thirty Years by Dianne Silvestri

    He phoned asking to meet for lunch,
    after long silence since I shoved
    his frat pin back the year after
    we left for college. He’d looked me up.

    In high school already he knew what he wanted
    and made me do it, those years before
    I knew I could refuse. Now I preempted
    his predictable persuasive monologue.

    I wore a confident shirt and make-up,
    took along photos of my husband and children
    to show and tell my escape.
    He was easy to spy, but the smart team captain’s

    eyes now seemed crocodile green,
    his smile toothy, Roman nose too thin.
    His build was fuller, self-assurance unchanged.
    I gave a firm handshake, ordered chicken salad.

    After comparing updates on family
    and careers—he married, no children—
    talk brought his news of others from our class,
    one dead already.

    I politely gathered up the end,
    accepted his card and spotted the note
    penned on the corner, “if there’s any interest,”
    dropped it into my bag.

    —

    Dianne Silvestri, author of the chapbook Necessary Sentiments, has had poems appear in The Main Street Rag, Earth’s Daughters, The Comstock Review, Evening Street Review, The Worcester Review, Pulse, The Healing Muse, and elsewhere. A Pushcart nominee, she is Copy-Editor of the journal Dermatitis and leads the Morse Poetry Group.

     

  • Mapping The Gnomes by Christina M. Rau

    Stuck in a corkboard,
    all sightings get categorized—

    Red:  Definite
    Blue: Possible
    Yellow: Probable
    Orange: Unlikely

    A 3-D connect-the-dots journey
    between bushes in Brussels
    under azaleas in Iceland
    among marigolds in Massachusetts
    through paved paths in Puerto Rico
    behind vines in Bellvue
    around weeds in West Germany.

    Reports come in rapid at sunrise
    when the light excites and surprises—
    three or four skittering across lawns and behind
    old dog houses, their voices louder than
    you’d think, if that’s that kind of thing
    you think about.

    They shout Make Way! Hold Back!
    They move in scattered variety,
    hurry to their places to
    complement the poppies
    accent the petunias
    uphold the underbrush
    with a wink, with a wish.

    The big board tracks all the movement,
    an attempt to capture magic
    on the head of a pin.

    Christina M. Rau is the author of the poetry chapbooks WakeBreatheMove (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and For The Girls, I (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). Founder of Poets In Nassau, a reading circuit on Long Island, NY, her poetry has appeared on gallery walls in The Ekphrastic Poster Show, on car magnets for The Living Poetry Project, and most recently in the journals Amethyst Arsenic and Better Than Starbucks. In her non-writing life, she practices yoga occasionally and line dances on other occasions. www.christinamrau.com