Ange Mlinko

Lynette, the stars are kerned so far apart —
Through a herniated zodiac I almost see your waled skylanes, your shocked Capricorn and Cancer.
In the hundred and two years since you were born, and the sixteen since your heart failed, and the nearly sixty since you gave up poetry, it seems we can’ t navigate by the same star chart.
I’ d like to think we were fated to work the same coracle: you steering with one hand, grasping your corner of the seine while I grasp mine; together sweeping the weirs.

Three mini ciabattini for breakfast
where demand for persnickety bread
is small, hence its expense, hence my steadfast
recalculation of my overhead,

which soars, and as you might expect
the ciabattini stand in for my fantasy
of myself in a sea-limned prospect,
on a terrace, with a lemon tree...

Not: Assessed a fee for rent sent a day late.
Not: Fines accrued for a lost library book.
Better never lose track of the date.
Oversleep, and you’ re on the hook.

If an orchidophage’ s tastebud magnified
resembles an orchid
so my buds indubitably mimic pricking ice cream cones.

Love, little by little it dawned on us the artisanal
ice cream, especially the prizewinning caramel,
would be out of our reach,
like the previous Friday of a Sunday leaving the beach,
in the meltdown.