waitress

 

Like a waitress
the angel waits
until your mouth is full

to ask
what you think
of the Glory

 

---

stairs in the sea

 

Another age’s culminating visions
persist as trinkets on sidewalk tables
where bored pushy locals protest and promise
ruinous discounts

But no theory survives the sun
and the clear bitter mezcal
They demand you relax or die

The white stone of pyramid stairs
down which damp disheartened bodies
once thump-caromed
burble like seafoam
from the green
On the beach
the pale waves have stairs

Yes, a Mayan tells a sunburned tourist
We killed our young men publicly violently.
They went singing to the only place there is to go. You die
in mute privacy. And you pretend horror?
Because where the thread has been broken
anything may be spoken

 

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colin dodds is the author of Another Broken Wizard, WINDFALL and The Last Bad Job.  His writing has appeared in more than two hundred publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net Anthology. Colin’s book-length poem That Happy Captive was a finalist for the Trio House Press Louise Bogan Award as well as the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award in 2015. His screenplay, Refreshment, was named a semi-finalist in the 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. Colin lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter. See more of his work at thecolindodds.com.