Jeff Mays

Pieces of the Ocean Are Floating in the Sky

The sun’s rays heat the top
of the ocean – its waves cresting

and falling, the krill bobbing
and swimming, the seaweed

sleepily drifting

Warmer and warmer it gets as the sun
seems to climb and presto

chango! it poofs into vapor,
causing the thin blue horizon to

shimmer, if you’re looking

The sweating vapor is released like a
balloon striving for the cooler

air to calm and condense it
back to water, tiny droplets that

are magnets of white fluff

Until windtraveled and seeping
with inky blue and grey

these chunks of ocean floating
in the sky finally succumb to gravity

and make their mad, foreseen dash for home

Lunch at Victoria Gardens

a man with a beard black
and grey sat on a bench under

a sheet of shadow and light, his
dark jacket keeping him warm,

his folded card-table legs propping
up an opened book, his disinterested arm

holding up an apple, its orange-red
variegated skin like an ornament

and behind the bench the boxwoods ran
their green around a sycamore which

was all reflected in a storefront window,
the glass glinting silently as a shop-

woman, young and full of possibility,
stooped like a simple calligraphy

rearranging the props and wares, as if
Edward Hopper hadn’t been here

a hundred times before

_____

In addition to being published by the Inlandia Journal, The Pacific Review, and The Sand Canyon Review, Jeff Mays is considering joining an indie rock band to write lyrics for in order to find an audience for his written work.