Three Summer Nights

Gary Beaumier

In Edinburgh once

I hopped a moving trolley

easy as a smile.

I hung on the hand rail

and lit an English Oval

spit a fleck of tobacco

into the cool of the summer air

and let it ride me

where it would

bumping along

through the night.

On Saint Finbars road

there’s a little cemetery

halfway to nowhere

where I loved you

beer and blanket

our bare backs

against the cool of a headstone

we were moving objects

briefly intersected

in the moonless dark

You were shadows and braille

to me as I read your body

with lips and fingers.

Against a star flooded sky

a satellite passes made of

old trolley parts

the earth turns east

I’m porous with moonlight

Let a thousand birds

convey me to that

object in the upper strata;

the merest of distances.

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In his later years Gary Beaumier has become something of a beachcomber. On a number of occasions he has cobbled together wooden sailboats.
He is a finalist and semi finalist for the Luminaire Award for several of his poems and a finalist for the Joy Bale Boone award and was nominated for Best of the Net Award for his poem Rio Grande. He won Streetlight Magazine's 1st Prize for his poem Night Train to Paris. His work has appeared in numerous other publications.
His chapbook "From My Family to Yours" has been accepted by Finishing Line Press. He taught poetry in a women's prison.

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