Free Chair

by Kathleen Radigan
After William Carlos Williams

Orphaned by indifferent kings
on a roadside, I find you glazed with rain.

You glitter with colorless light
like an urchin the sea coughed out.

I dream my skin calcifies, curls
and peels. I chew sun-poison flecks
beside you on the highway.

We aging exhibitionists
dimmed under wind wear,
we two gypsies hunch in ourselves,
listen for a mother in the car screech.

University & College Poetry Prizes Page