Two Poems
Picture of the Christ and the Magdalene
Happens at the carnival while it is in town.
It is a strip of four black and white pictures from one of those booths that cost a couple bucks.
The auras of their halos do not show up, nor are the halos present in any manner.
In fact, you might think it was two college kids in need of a souvenir near the end of an evening of good, clean fun.
She carries the stuffed Garfield toy he won at the baseball toss, knocking down three little clown head sandbags in a row.
His smile is broad, genuinely happy, carefree. His eyes always look at her. In the third frame you get the feeling that he’s thinking he might get lucky tonight.
Her pensive smile darkens her eyes as she can’t seem to shake that mild anxiety she picked up at the Tarot reader’s, with all her gypsy predictions that sounded too much like gospel.
In the Red
In an attempt to make everyone feel better about themselves, I rolled a red carpet out on interstate forty a distance of one hundred and fifty-three miles. I realize the highway goes east-west and I unrolled the red carpet only on the westbound lanes, but I figured I can catch some of the people going and some of the people coming and they will feel like their travel must be pretty special.
I view the drivers on interstate twenty-five as going up or down, not north or south, and that they’ve made their life choices and realized the consequences, both intended and unintended, of their actions.
There is no telling what my red carpet does for the color blind.
And, for me, it matters not at all, as I ride a bicycle on the frontage road not worried about time or distance or anything, except how far to the next stop where I may refill my water bottles.
—Kenneth P. Gurney, Albuquerque, NM
