A Poem...but not my own!!

Today is the National Day of Writing. So in honor of that, I am using my last seven minutes in the computer lab to share a poem with you...perhaps later I will write something...this is a poem by a poet that I'm beginning to study, I hope you like it!! :)

A Valentine for Ben Franklin Who Drives a Truck in California

by Diane Wakoski

I cut the deck

and found a magician

driving a mack truck

down the California grapevine.

His eyes were glistening Japanese beetles,

and his hands were surveyors of the moon.

He pulled a carnation

out of his sleeve,

and offered me a ride.

I took the flower and said I was leaving

to be an illusionist. He said

he specialized in cards

and sleight of hand.

I touched his mouth and ears

with my lips,

“Keep on truckin,”

I said.

But he laughed and told me a bedtime story.

His body was an elm.

His mouth was filled with grapes.

His hands turned my body into new honey.

Now I am home alone,

reading directions

for sawing a beautiful woman in half.

First you start with a mirror . . . .

Before I turn down

the crisp sheets of my bed,

I shuffle the tarot deck.

But the magician is missing.

Is he

still driving the freeways of California?

Or is he

only an illusion

in my own

magician’s

head?