That lost January
I traveled to
calm pale shores
and Duval Street
with the cats
of Hemingway winding
thin and hungry
past tourists’ smiles.
Midnight found me
hot from vodka,
dancing with young
gay men dressed
in perfect white.
And mornings? They
were hungry pelicans
and water, all
the Spanish treasure
gone, and in
the post office
with black chickens
all your frantic
letters left unopened
in the box
with its old
rented silver key.
Copyright 2015, Katharyn Howd Machan
Katharyn Howd Machan, author of 32 published collections (most recently Wild Grapes: Poems of Fox, Finishing Line Press, 2014), is Professor of Writing at Ithaca College. In 2012 she edited Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology (Split Oak Press).