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Leone

by Peter Austin

She tells me (I’m her oldest friend at work,
The one to whom her heart is opened, ergo)
That Cancer’s an auspicious match with Virgo,
That, though for now he’s just a common clerk,
His aim is to enrol in flying school,
Grow godlike (with her groceries for manna?)
As ace of Island Air or Mexicana….
I feel an urge to chasten her with, “Fool! —

“He’s just another con man in disguise!”
She knows, though. At this latest indiscretion,
Abashment I can read in her expression,
The circumambulation of her eyes;
Yet nothing is as direful to Leone
As no name on the doorbell but her own.

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Peter Austin’s poems have been published previously in 14 by 14 as well as in many of the venues for formal verse in the USA and Canada. His first collection, A Many-Splendored Thing, came out last July.

Pat Jones
Published 30 May 2011