Suzanne Hayasaki Poems

Float me down the Thames
Past centuries of history
Show me the dome that Wren built
Row me past the Globe!
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Let me burn somewhere deep in your heart
Like a live ember buried in the ashes of our past.
Let my heat rekindle the passions of your youth
When middle age weighs you down with its ugly truths.
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An old woman sits on a folding chair
Outside a dilapidated shop with peeling paint
Talking on her phone in bellicose sing-song tones
That sound alien to me but like home to someone.
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Here I stand
On this rocky piece of land
Head to the wind
Calf to my lee
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If summer is a lusty brother,
He is also a slothful one,
Lingering far longer
Than he is wanted
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Go ahead.
Make us wait.
Leave your musicians on the stage
While you change your clothes
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If sentences are journeys,
Then poems are expeditions
Into the unknown reaches
Of the jungles, the deserts,
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Sitting here serenely
Sipping cinnamon tea
Reading Ferlinghetti
Remembering Paris
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Skinny women wonder what my secret is.
They ask me where my beauty hides.
They look at me with eyes which are trained to see
Each flaw, each pound, each inch
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Down to the River

Take me down to the river.
Let me dip my feet in the flow.
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