Denise Antoni Poems

The summer shimmers, glitters with promise.
There is so much to glean from the sea.
A clear wave of memory laps
My ankles, deep across the shifting sand
...

Whorled stone, enwombed in time's green curves.
Along a knotted cord of path

Expectant aconites bloom, trembling white-clad girls
...

Along the lanes the rowan
Trees put out their fresh green tongues,
To taste again the young yellow dew
Of a new-honeyed sun.
...

Oscar Wilde:
Each man kills the thing he loves.
Endymion:
For his element is grief.
...

Rocks; a roiling vortex. Then, a lull and the first frozen breath
Of the ghost-ridden Antarctic.
A cold-sweated vessel with depleted cargo
Exhaling smoke and death
...

The southerly birds write their algebra in the skies,
Their voices equating frost to sand.
Saharan stars span
Their wings, calibrating and cross-hatching
...

Sometimes it is enough. Let ancient wreathes
Adorn the last casket of my heart. Your eyes
Fade. Soon, too soon, Love breathes
His last upon me; a feint, cadent, surprised.
...

The bay flames, a brazen chalice.
Come and haul from its wine-dark words
All the Old World's boasting promise,
The vintage, pearly, twilit hoards.
...

A flat green tide neaps at the footstones,
Stranding this church on a secret shore.
The sea stood down from the steeping of bones.
...

Walking down Melrose Avenue
Nearly thirty years later,
Drunken wheeled coffins and cars clutter;
The junk of the world tries to smother you.
...