Neil McKay's Shared Poems

On cold winter days
The hawks sit atop lamp posts
Examining the freeway median
for movement
for lunch
for bacon to bring home

In the summer
They take advantage of updrafts and
circle endlessly, effortlessly
Making small adjustments in their wingtips
to tighten the circles
At a moment's notice
They can fold their wings and dive
and dinner is a done deal

But in Winter
They are all about conserving energy
There's seldom an updraft
and if they thought the mice would not detect their presence
They would stand among the tall grasses
and stay altogether out of the wind.

Sometimes the moon stays out all night.
Sleeps in and then rises late again the next night
Drives in to town from his home on the east side
After the kitchens have closed
And the bands have started their first sets
Hangs out on the street with the smokers
Too cool to go in and listen
Too lonely to go home
He makes jokes at the expense of hipsters
And stoners
Both too self absorbed to notice
His acidic put downs, laced in jealousy
He flirts with the girls who
came with his friends
But as the night goes on
His chances of going home with someone diminish
Until, at 3 am, he stands under a streetlight
Alone, save for that one girl
The one he was not all that into
The one who didn't really get his witty remarks
Who thought he was being mean
Who had a chance to go home
With Jupiter
But for some reason stayed
Until her last chance
To deny the loneliness for a night
revolved around the Moon
And the look in her eyes
Tells the Moon that his last chance
Is standing in front of him
And as they ride together
To her home on the west side,
He wonders what it would be like
To get up and go to work every morning
Like the sun.

The full moon this morning
Was large in front of me
Once the clouds parted

Framed in the windshield
Of my northbound Honda
Perhaps not the sturdiest of spaceships
But very fuel efficient

For a few moments,
I was an astronaut
Steering a direct course to the lunar surface
At 70 miles an hour
It would take me 142 days to arrive

Longer if I take the Ferndale exit.

Maybe if I tried to write a negative comment a day,
Or come up with a worry a day.
Maybe if I were to attempt to count my faults every day
Give up daily
Not even try

Maybe I would last for a week
And then stop doing those things too.

He said, "This place is full of mirrors"
Yes there was a mirror there
But he was looking at me.