Reflections
The glass pane reflects
a small boy at the neighboring table
discussing, with a frown, the odd
yet consequential habits of Santa Claus,
and reflects the sparkling Christmas tree
and the staff in red Santa caps
chatting by the flaming brick oven
of this soft, casual Italian restaurant,
while beyond the window falls
a gray winter rain,
black umbrellas flashing past,
a young woman across the Greenwich Village street
stretching in the warmth of her apartment, one
decorated for the season, while
I—happening upon
my ghostly face
reflected amid the glowing images
before and behind me,
take a sip of red wine, my glass
a pagan chalice.
The Watch
Someone
kept to a corner
of a dream, watching it
with me, until I glanced up
to see my grandfather
not in the memories
my three-year-old mind
enshrined after he died
but from my present perspective—
aged into the decade of his death—
noting the features we share
and those we don’t
until I wept with joy
at this wondrous reunion—
though his gentle smile
told me that our reunion
was all one-sided, told me
that his love, lavished
upon my toddler self,
had not been lost
but had been, after all,
at the edge of every dream,
sleeping or waking,
keeping watch.
Mark Belair’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Alabama Literary Review, Atlanta Review, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry East and The South Carolina Review. His books include the collection While We’re Waiting(Aldrich Press, 2013) and two chapbook collections: Night Watch (Finishing Line Press, 2013), and Walk With Me (Parallel Press of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 2012). For more information, please visit www.markbelair.com