Max Reif Poems

We wake up already
in the theater,
where the plays are running
but the last acts are not yet
...

Nice to have a friend
somewhere in the world,

someone to hold my kite string,
...

Just a little while ago,
that bald African-American
who's sitting at the window booth,
...

In Bermuda
shorts on a cold morning
he wheeled his shopping cart,
a little recklessly,
...

And where does a story end,
and another one begin?
And what of those moments,
lounging on a street corner
...

I check my website stats each morning
to see what people, and machines,
have been there drinking at my pool.
...

It's a perfect evening after work,
the air so balmy my body seems
to dissolve in the breeze,
...

The buffet opens
and no one comes.
The waiters stand around
in their white shirts
...

1. The Public Pier

Here beyond the screaming beach,
the volleyball and surfers,
...

My sleeping body is a field lying fallow,
dark loam of flesh folded in on itself,
imbibing mysteries. When I rise,
...