Dignity

I

His words sounded funny, though dark.
Once laughed a hearty "no" and "don't"
He won't stop telling me the joke
Increasingly the fulsome parts.

II

Tonic makes a gin much sweeter
Than its raw juniper poison:
A fifth unzipped that famous poise and
Tipped her tapping as their leader.

III

Played football by the razor fence
Washed off in a bath of saline
Woke common nights to copter screams:
And rocks an arrogant offense?

IV

He was handsome but wanted more -
Much more. Now she's marked as hardcore.

The Treble Effect

I'll be okay until the second call -
At only six-fifteen no bed's unturned
The fry has not yet turned to simmer -
I'll probably say I could have gone longer.

I'll be so close I'll hear the first inch
As they gather and start to twit "now where?"
But they won't note another seven ticks,
Which are indistinguishable from six.

I'll be the avatar who overcomes
The treble effect: a saw that wants to say
Departures punish by successive trips:
Like eggs burned, dawns missed, and misconstrued quips.

The last one

Eventually the walking down began
And the night, from the far turn, then eastward
Beget a new purple bloom.

Walking toward the sound, then fleeting
To the sound, the sound,
The roar

I reached the harbor where the newly christened
Liner was running out and drawing
Behind it the black scent of solder.

But when I turned toward the western cobblestones
The one I saw last was the
one I'd seen first - and never

Reread the stitching on his
pressed-Monday coveralls.

Steven Ray Smith is the editor of Texas Poetry Journal. His work has appeared in Story South, Orbis (UK), Skidrow Penthouse, Wild Violet, Los Contemporary Poesy and Art, Creative Pulse of Austin, the Austin Chronicle, and other journals. He is a vice president at the largest culinary school in Texas.

Copyright 2005, Steven Ray Smith. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.