Vacation Beard


Stroke by stroke and pass by pass
the warmed steel slices away the persona of leisure.
Five days’ growth is gone.
And as it settles on the bottom of the basin I wonder –
Is memory found only in mind?
Or is some infinitesimal piece bound up in whisker?

Messenger

I wish I were a bicycle messenger.
Oblivious to danger.
Pedaling furiously through town.
Navigating upstream between lanes of oncoming cars.
Then darting onto the sidewalk -
a right angle impulse -
to stop at a cafe
and enjoy an espresso with my bike messenger friends.

What would we talk about?
What issues would we debate?

Who among us is fastest?
A friend's most recent tattoo?

Or, just perhaps, our waning immortality?