Twos Two men have counted you accomplice to an illness; they both created your image for a stiffness. Since neither could possess you willingly to sit beside, they handsomely rejoiced in your spirit. So, ghosted the pictures they both drew. No pencil deliberately pushed to paper conjured you. Their frustration replaced any further dream each had. With you out of reach they next came face-to-face. As the sky loses light inexorably to night, that slowly four lids closed as if in a mirror two twos were neatly lost.
Retired children’s librarian Alan Bern’s poetry books: No no the saddest and Waterwalking in Berkeley, Fithian Press; greater distance and other poems, Lines & Faces, his illustrated broadside press with artist/printer Robert Woods, linesandfaces.com. Alan earned first runner-up in The Raw Art Review’s “Mirabai Prize for Poetry, 2020”; he won a medal in 2019 from SouthWest Writers for a WWII story set in Italia; he won the 2015 Littoral Press Poetry Prize. Recent photos: https://theravensperch.com/12439-2/, unearthed, and thimblelitmag. Alan performs with dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space and with musicians from Composing Together,
Grand Little Things 