John Levy



My Wife


My wife is painting
the ocean. It,

the ocean, looks
real

sort of, on the
watercolor

paper
because

she (my
wife, not

the ocean)
is excellent.

I
can't

judge

the ocean.



Nine Lines of Mine from Nine Poems


Where'd I put my sentence? My head filled and
They felt they had to enter. Everyone else did.

Why tell me about them and expect me to laugh?

Each weighs a ton and offers
dark scenes, ugliness. Sometimes

I'd look out

out of a hidden place
Orange hem of morning and evening

that come to us weathered and rich



On the side of

the metal drawer (beige) of
my filing cabinet a
sticker (paper) that says


  WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THE
QUALITY OF THIS PRODUCT
        INSPECTED BY 767
                       1192-92


and yes, I even enjoy
the line breaks on the sticker, not
to mention the spacing that
seems

not totally utilitarian

and I wonder
if 767, the inspector, is
a man or a woman and is
still alive

and if
he or she was the one
who glued this
little label in such an unobtrusive

place
so far from
a child's
dreams of

posterity

Misplaced X-Ray of My Head


It was big, that
piece of film, in a slightly bigger
envelope. I thought I'd keep it
because I like skulls
and did way back before they
decorated everything from t-shirts to
almost anything else for sale. Maybe

it will turn up someday, in one of the boxes of
almost everything I've ever owned. It's a wobbly
negative
heavier than a giant
birthday card. If I don't find it before I die
my wife or children will, maybe

laughing (lovingly I hope) at all
the shit I kept — and now THIS? —
after they open the
huge envelope and find what is no
greeting card
I'd choose to send them.



Annette


I open a Giacometti book
randomly and find
"Portrait of Annette" 1954
Oil on canvas
and feel
speechless
looking at her

sitting nude, on a
chair, as modest
a pose as possible
nude
serious
and his repeated
lines
struggle and focus

on a planet
that might as well have no name
or words
for now
as now
vibrates



John Levy lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is a lawyer who worked as a County Public Defender before retiring in 2016. He has published a handful of books, some of which are electronic books.
 
 
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