Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications. Most recently, my collection “In Absentia,” was published in August 2021 with Silver Bow Publishing. 

Free

She is free sitting in the convertible
relaxed in the swift breeze
of sixty mile per hour rushes.

Trusting with every element
of a life she offers to him
she smiles eyes closed as her strands float.

When she might shy away from strangers
now she abandons all inhibitions
glad he can contemplate her entire

She needs not hide the breasts with a fist
nor cross those naked legs with a padlock
feeling his eyes upon her she sighs with joy.

She might be nude as she may wear an armor
bearing her soul with complete abandon
she is the Amazon body and spirit.

Reclining in a semblance of sleep
she feels the infinite touch of a gaze
a Transcendent shroud to her being.

Revealed to the eternal on the leather of a Sunday joyride
the contentment of a lifetime fills her
with an internal glow born with the stars.

Open window

The bed was of cheap foam
before an armoire of composite particles
a night table in light blue plastic 
and a candle burning in his only luxury.

He had made wallpaper of animal photos
gathered in the glossy pages of stolen magazines
taped on the virgin plaster in haphazard 
leaning as if they were to sink into a forgotten sea.

In the balmy night of long-gone Augusts
oversized French windows gaped into the unknown
dreamer he could not sleep with the haunting chant
of that perpetual owl and her ominous voice. 

Little makes sense in those impossible days
endless summer so long awaited
and little dreams of a diminutive child
might he at last find rest in his troubled land.

He knows that tomorrow again he will pretend
spend hours at play with the games of life
grown-ups loathe with every pulsing vein
so old in his preteen moments he might be their creator.

Sweet undertaker

The chair rocked softly in the last hours
fog slowly lifted above the crumbling abode
steam from a gentle aroma arose to an old soul
his eyes pierced a dream in the greater distance.

Memories floated random within a weakened mind
his aim to cling to those uncertain shapes
grasp at a moment not yet erased from his hopes
if only he could take a step to a precious instant.

The warmth of the comforting nectar dissipates
subliming into what he may wish to be a gray heaven
trembling with the confusion of remaining heartbeats
if only he could once again perceive her touch.

A drop slips from remnants of a strength now gone
he withdraws behind the walls of a wrinkled shell
knowing well that this is where all things must end
soon, she will touch him, cold as ice, into the ground.