Outside and (G)In

Hostels and beer on the sidewalk café

                Gates Foundation and biotech

                Approachable folks, accepting

                                Willing to add a sketch to the book of European experiences

Talk flows without effort as if old friends have met again

Four-star hotel and wine with ho’rs dourves

                Pressed shirts and gowns and heels and dangling diamonds

                Congregate in safe groups

                Excluding in tight huddles

A challenge to seek

                The gift of a sketch as I

Escape the corner box!

This is Outside and Gin

Blue Veil

  Silk blue veil covering the silver-shimmer
sequins of fish, she
dances her windy watery soft
shimmy.  Unhappy with her outfit,
she changes into something
brown, then foamy green, then a
bottomlessly deep black with
white lace and caps accented in wide stripes
of a metal riveted belt in two layers.
She wakes in the morning
yawning clouds in her sea gull
pajamas of Berkeley cloud
patches; dreamy and Tolkien,
magical as if she'd just left a night
in Middle Earth.  Matching
her lover's blissfull look with
clarity and calm;  two mirrors of
eternal blue.  At night she brings
out a velvet gown of midnight,
studded with rhinestone stars and
she flirts with the crescent watching
from above.