Late Afternoon on Palmer Street in Spring

By Jacquelyn Malone

A business meeting over a glass of wine,

as papers on the outdoor table lift briefly

in a soft breeze.

Sudden “Ohs,” then laughter as colleagues dig in again

to proposals, budgets,

wine.

A car rolls over cobblestones, the rumble

like excited kids popping bubble wrap.

An amorous pigeon coos from the window ledge

of an ornate brick building.

A grandmother smiles as she cheerfully pushes a baby carriage;

the baby laughs and reaches toward a puppy

wriggling against its leash

to reach the baby.

Two workers leave an office building early,

ready for the joy of more light,

more warmth,

more air filled with the fragrance

of hyacinths and crabapples trees.

 Patrons begin to fill the tables of two facing bistros.

Not a single face looks glum.

 ****

The Gulf Between

By Jacquelyn Malone

Across the river in the fog, someone

is walking, a phantom blip in the pale gray air.

Why does someone — man? woman? — walk

a park service trail — a pleasure path —

in the chilled foggy dusk?

There are no streetlamps.

The walk leads nowhere

that there aren’t shorter ways to go.

A quarter mile across the river that inscrutable figure

walks clock-like and unhurried,

like a shadow in a film noir — the hunter? or the hunted?

Someone who likes seclusion?

A depressive seeking oblivion, someone

for whom this path is a daily ritual?

The dot-sized cranium is sealed and off-limits.

If that figure could see me,

a face in one dimly lit window

in one in a hundred condominium units along the river,

what reason would that mind assign to my stare?

The figure keeps on moving,

disappearing from my view.

****

Jacquelyn Malone worked as Senior Web Writer/ Editor at IBM and Lotus Development Corp., as an adjunct taught both technical and scientific writing and editing at Northeastern. She also writes poetry and has won a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship Grant in Poetry, is the author of a chapbook titled All Waters Run to Lethe, and has been published in numerous journals, including Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Northwest, and Lowell Review. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart and have appeared on the website Poetry Daily.