Where the Sea Oats Hold the Concrete Wall

     by Winnona Elson Pasquini

the asphalt holds the heat and fronded

palms offer little shade. The deckle edge

of gray-green buttonwood hovers

near soft shoulders, trying to refrain

from the push of summer breeze

and the insistent roar of ocean waves.

There, a girl transcribed, minioned

breasts, elegant deplete with every breath.

Mullioned legs, pumping, fast,

oil-slicked semafora of lust.

I move slowly as she runs by.

Her coconut scent mingles

with iodine air, while I smell

of copper, age, and rust. She flings

her sweat in diamond drops, a fortune

lost to this humid air, her shaded

eyes following the sun that glows

like a Crayola-yellow Thunderbird,

shiny and new.

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Winnona Elson Pasquini is a poet living in Tampa, Florida, whose recent publications include work in The Chronicle of Higher Education Online, Eighty Percent Magazine, Divine Dirt Quarterly, Cherry Blossom Review, and Poetry Quarterly. She is also the winner of both the 2008 Estelle J. Zbar and the 2008 Bettye Newman Poetry Awards. She is a devoted Italophile and when not writing poetry, spends her time planning her next trip to her favorite city of Venice, Italy.

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© 2011 Winnona Elson Pasquini