Two Poems by Harry Calhoun

The one

She sleeps beside me
in this enchanted
sun-drunk afternoon,
shades drawn
her hair stylish short
but the face that of an angel

sent to save me

her hands meet
between her breasts
and her neck as if
in prayer and I can’t

sleep before I record this
but I can’t wait
to go sleep beside her
secure that I’ve found truth

in this artificial
shade-drawn
lucky

afternoon
_____________________

Vigil

You’re away on business again
and I’m sitting up on your bolster pillow
in our bedroom and working crosswords
and reading and jotting down poems

and Alex trots his 90 jet-black pounds
into the living room every few minutes.
When I go out to check on him,
he is sitting looking through the slats

of the blinds in the living room,
doggedly waiting for you to come home.
I tell him that you aren’t arriving
until tomorrow, but every few minutes

his big clapping paws slap on the hardwood
on his way to that window. Eventually,
I close the blinds. But you know if I wasn’t human
and didn’t have the distracters of puzzles

and books and poetry (and more recently brandy)
I’d be sitting out in that window with him,
keeping the vigil I have in my heart,
with the sweet expectant innocence I see

in Alex’s honest brown eyes.