Made Up
Sometimes she remembers
She’s a widow
As strong chins
Pass her on the square
She hears their youth
Cat call back the years
So in the spring
She responds
With a tender habit
Recalled from dignity
A single red whisper
Across both lips
Binary
And on summer nights
You look up like a lily
Or a poet
Where the stars show off
A thousand years of meaning
And she’s there
Trembling just below Orion’s Belt
Red to blue and white
The more you look away
You remember that some of us are binary
Secretly connected to another
And only those who have known
Will know
Sprung from the wet earth of the south, MICHAEL K. GAUSE now writes in Minnesota. His first self-published chapbook, The Tequila Chronicles, received honorable mention in The Carbon Based Mistake’s 2004 Art Exchange Program Contest. His second, I Want To Look Like Henry Bataille, was published in 2006 by Little Poem Press and to his knowledge hasn’t won squat. He is the creator and host of The Dishevel’d Salon, a monthly gathering of artists in the Twin Cities. His website is www.thedayonfire.com.
