Cracked (A Rondeau for You)

Our future cracked open, fortune cookies brought
at meal’s end in restaurants drenched in gold and red, not
for nothing, opulence of lucky money colors, seats
where my kosher grandparents made exception for treats
like lobster sauce, pork fried rice, a sin sought,

consumed, dismissed with smiles, quite as you thought
of our stepping beyond what we’d been taught
as we lay kissing between peach-colored sheets
while our future cracked open.

Continue tempting fate until one’s caught,
live with heightened pitch, all nerves stretched taut
or keep to separate time zones, walk lonely moonlit streets,
travel up and down that tangle, one advances, one retreats,
penitence and passion weaving in, around, out until, so fraught
our future cracked open.

Shell

Shards of abalone traced across and down my skin,
beginning at the hairline, skating over my closed eyes,
slight slope of nose, half-open lips, to reach my chin
and leap aloft, the landing soft between my throat bones’ rise.

Descend from there to spiny sternum, stomach’s curving swell,
their edges sharp enough to pierce, sides grown smooth by sand.
For years to come, they’ll hold a secret, ours alone to tell.
Slipped from their bag, held lightly in my hand.

You gave me shells of moonlight sheen, a rock in shades of rust,
gifts that could shatter in a moment, scatter into gleaming bits of dust.

So what to do? Break myself away, or trust
my heart, my soul, in hands that hold me like a shell,
that carefully, that lovingly, that well?

Carole Greenfield was raised in Colombia and now lives in New England. Her work has appeared in Red Dancefloor, Gulfstream, The Sow’s Ear, Women’s Words: Resolution, Arc, Sparks of Calliope, and The Eunoia Review.