Charlotte Hamrick – Two Poems

Delaronde Street

by late august we’ve become
accustomed to the noise of the
locusts singing their mating song of hope
the calls rise and fall in tandem
with the breeze that blows over
our bodies as
we lie together in the hammock
the gnarly limbs of an ancient oak
like a cradle around the balcony and
we the not-so-innocent babes
within it’s protective embrace
softly we swing holding our
glasses of gin and tonic the cold
sweat of the glass dripping
on breasts and chest then
vanishing into skin that still
glows with the flush of sex
the rustling leaves of the palmettos
heighten the strains of Irvin’s
“Othello and Desdemona” wafting
through the french doors and
I hum along too lazy and sated
to talk eyes languidly watching
the whir of the ceiling fan
In the midst of the fading afternoon
the mournful horn of The Natchez
fractures our reverie and we
smile because it’s another reminder
of why we are so content in
this city by the river

**

Purple Green and Gold

she joined the rabble rousers
in a street dance of abandon
on a night made of fantasy
purple, green, gold
jesters and skeletons and
a dominatrix with a whip
fleur de lis and masked revelers
drunken wet kisses, blonde hair
in disarray, eyes glazed with
desire, to be, to love
to live
dancing on a tabletop
in a room of pulsing light
and gyrating bodies
that validate her
wild and secret nature
for one night, in one place
suspended forever in her psyche