Stephen Mead




Warmed at the stove & to stand, eat right there
cutting eyes at the cat before dishing a spoonful
while missing your fork.

You didn’t know your own power
& neither did I really, yet absence reminds,
hits the full stomach, still hungering.

Maybe for the next forty-years-or-so we’ll again be
debating about who loves the other more,
yet now it is mainly about the rituals of opera,
finding the records most scratched & letting that crackle
be surf for a beached mermaid.

The waves crash over rocky crags
& all the shelter she has is the brilliance of singing.

Just so, let me croak fish bones from my teeth,
pick the heart, find looking glass, find shears
& send you a lock, an abracadabra
that I’m still your open door.





Stephen Mead is a retired Civil Servant, having worked two decades for three state agencies.  Before that his more personally fulfilling career was fifteen years in healthcare.  Throughout all these day jobs he was able to find time for writing poetry/essays and creating art. Occasionally he even got paid for this work. Currently, he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall.