Finding Mary Magdalene

I saw her in the weave of time,
a shimmer in a silver stream,
scoping out couture and purple Prada
while wearing the seven veils of Salome,

eyeliner drawn into fine Egyptian points.

We had dinner and water made from wine

beneath the Brooklyn Bridge

before heading to a lover’s loft

 

where the Soho demons howled

until she released them with a midnight sigh.

The magician was nowhere to be seen,

just a woman with her bangles and beads.

 

We walked to the Village and past the Tombs

hand in hand, the femme younger than the script

would have the generations believe,

a May-December flip of the hair and heart.

 

Oh, she was the pearl of great price,

the treasure hidden in a field.

Time passed, and New Hampshire roped us in

as we settled on a plausible tale to spin

 

on scrolls where ink specified iota and jot.

We made too much love and not enough,

her red lips, dark hair, blue eyes

never growing old like a dead sea

 

with salt and dying fish that were multiplied.

Her love was a shimmer in a silver stream,

twisting and rising and turning

and always always to die for.

~William Hammett

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The Crossing

The harried housewife stops for the train—
the gate swing and bell ring—
a silver snake speeding into burbs.
She crosses the hump of rails
to find a home, to cook a meal,
a yellow firefly blinking into sleep. 

The comet speeds through dark matter cold—

a tail of dust, a hint of home—

iron-nickel ice crossing the belt

to warm itself, to speak with Brother Saul.

The whip-swing sling shot

sends it to the burbs where sleeping dogs lie.

~William Hammett

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Rare Books

They are old soldiers home from the war,
spines cracked and broken,
aching from the weight of life
and stories that beg to be told.
The pages are yellow, like the teeth

of men who have seen a century crawl

on its knees from birth to fragility.

Memories are stored along the bones,

thread stitching together the decades.

Dog ears measure first love, innocent kisses,

 

the time by the stream in the woods

when clothes were shed with abandon

and the opposite sex was a game

of flirtation and near misses.

Some rose early in the blue morning

 

for a factory with a stack,

an office with a clock

with only a nine and five on its face.

There’s a bookmarker here and there

whispering “I simply can’t go on right now,

 

but maybe later, maybe later.”

Dust on the covers and the tops of the pages

seems to anticipate death,

and yet they live on, their minds intact

and ready to quote a poem or tale

 

of this day or that,

of how cleansing the rain was

or how the land was sunny and flat.

They have been consigned to retirement,

yearning like Ulysses for years—more years—

 

and yet these old men with vellum souls,

their thoughts as precise as ink,

seem to ponder, word by word

and line by line, the real possibility

that they are destined for immortality.

~William Hammett

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