Francine Witte

September 21

What was that wound
you were trying to hide?

Your right hand flecked
with new-dried blood.  This

was the first night
of a cranky autumn

just waking up.  You
saying goodbye, calloused

fingers stroking my cheek,
the pads of your palms

half-mooned with the nail prints
of summer trying to hold on.

That Time at Coney Island

Oh, you were there. I saw you.
There was an ocean, hot dogs
and ice cream cones. There
were seagulls who only knew want.
They flew near us. Eyed us, hoping
we would drop scraps. Eye beads
like blackened stones watching
us for one false move, one letting down.
We never gave it to them. Silly birds.
Stop wanting, we almost told them.
You are a bird. You can have bird things.
Pebbles and sandworms or fish that wash up.
And then there was you. Always having
to go somewhere. Always a thing I was
watching. You, about to fade into
the horizon. Me, my eyes like
blackened stones.

 

Francine Witte is the author of two full-length poetry collections and five poetry chapbooks. Her newest collection, Some Distant Pin of Light, is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press in Summer, 2024. She has two full-length collections of flash fiction, and three chapbooks. She is flash fiction editor of FLASH BOULEVARD and South Florida Poetry Journal. She lives in NYC.