2 Poems by Vincent St. Clare

The First Thousand Miles


To take the long way

Away from

Home


How to make peace with that purring engine,

Subtle vibrato?

Past the nascent crack in the window, the scent of conifers


Flanks the blue range

Never mind your lectures on Randy Rhodes

But I can’t just tip-toe around how


I’m looking at you looking at

Your teeth in a

Hand mirror


And despite it all, the little exchanges

Between the passenger seat

And me


They’d roll off my back like salt over the shoulder

In lieu of the mist which hangs and harangues

Beyond the musty pane

It looks back sharply

And for one moment

We can both agree


That there’s something near,

And dearer

In the breeze



Evaporation


The sun a splinter

Breathed the light

Touching the eye,

Blue


Shows dew as it is

Yet not its becoming


Sun, eye wide:

Earth, thief found


Gives back to the sea

As if to bargain for mercy


Bionote

Vincent St. Clare is the nom de plume of a fledgling writer and longtime resident of small-town New England.