If Emily Dickinson Calls, Tell Her I’m Already Spoken For
                     Carl Mayfield

             First:  find out who taught her how to use
                       the phone. Exile same.

             Second: Please remind that woman that I’ve asked her
                          not to call me in the 21^st century.

             And finally:  Gently reassure Miss D. that for me
                                 she’s still the brightest comet who
                                 never left the house, who still tingles
                                 the hopeful feathers sprouting along
                                 my spine.

                                         how

                                        sad

                                        is

                                        that.

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At the All-Night Joint
                     Carl Mayfield

No one wants to know
if my bald spot is painted on.
What I think about anything
wouldn't fill a salt shaker.

After a brief silence
a woman says the cook
is waiting, doesn't have all day.
I'm sure that he does,
but I let the issue slide.

The eggs arrive,
happy to be out 
of the kitchen.
And it hits me
that I'm happy too.

And it hits me,
again and again.

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Echoes of the Present
                     Carl Mayfield

The moment
dressed in a red sweater
looks vacantly
through me
while speaking
on a phone-shaped
cloud

time travels
from one loving ear
to another

in the very nearly now
the gone moments
and those still to come
dance lazily
across that glassy stare

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Homage to Edward Hopper
                     Carl Mayfield

He noticed that nothing is to everyone,
including coffee cups, sides of barns,
the air burdened with sunlight.
He saw what we felt
before we knew we were
breasts and wide-brimmed hats.

Some thought he was a painter and he let them.
Many more glanced at his work
while thinking of a sunken-eyed pot roast
beckoning from their dreams,
and he let them.

When you turn your face
back to the minute you've been given,
take pleasure in your solitude,
in the moment you sense
you are being caressed
by a brush that trembles
at the speed of perception. 

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Seen, Unseen
Carl Mayfield

The clematis by the bay
adopts a shade of burgundy.

People walk by,
seagulls fly overhead.

Unseen at mid-day,
stars fly a little

above the seabirds
and the haircuts.

My path, too, is invisible
to those who have no use

for a simpleton like me. 
The clematis sways in the breeze.

The burgundy follows the flowers
wherever they go. 

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