In Memoriam

Dale Theodore Johnson

1938-1991

Three Appearances of a Four Letter Word

1.  No More Darlings

          No more darlings?

Improbable lie.  That would be a two

ring circus.  Give my ticket away.

          (Did I tell it?)

Shift the tigers' masks and snarls

out of center ring.  Fear

          sleepwalks me

to the sideshows.  Turn, return,

the three rings are full, and above

          the high wire.

2.  California

After I heard that you were free

I went home to sleep, and dreamt of a blue

wave, warm, holding light

in its deep curve, that I went to meet,

saying, I may look like a tourist, but

I've lived in water and sun

before, I know this shore.  It sluiced

over my whole skin and filled

my eyes with clean blue.  I stroked

through that bright tumbling, holding

easily to my towel, that stayed

safely in my hand, and dry.

3.  April Twelfth

     I celebrate --

I praise the morning of your day,

     lion gaze, 

gambling man who gambled away

     anger.

     In the company

of lion's eyes there is this comfort:

     speech

of what the poems want to say,

     what the lion

     sees.  On

your day, let me give you,

     lightly as

the eyelid of the lion moves

     such a light

     gift:  weightless

love, floating in the air

     between us

where it can't be grasped, but is

     breathed.

                                              Continue  Third Moment

Third Moment

The third moment:

a term for the measure

of skewness.

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Diane Hatcher Cano

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