Three Pieces By Alan Britt

NIGHT

Patio
emits
a gill of light.

Lattice
sheds
its scales
across dark grass
& yellow leaves.

YELLOW LEAVES

Yellow leaves
form an apricot pile.

The cold wind
is an eighty-four-year-old
Impressionist painter
teasing a young girl
who swings a teal watering can.

I can tell
by the cold wind’s arthritic red knuckles.

COLD AFTERNOON

Banana-spotted, green leaves
cover the ground.

Wind’s fingers rake icy shadows
across the leaves’ sleeping fur.

--Alan Britt teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University. His recent books are Vegetable Love (2009),Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). Essays recently in Clay Palm Review and Arson. Interviews and poetry (selected) recently featured in Steaua (Romania), Latino Stuff Review and Poet’s Market. Other poems (selected) in Agni, The Bitter Oleander, Bolts of Silk (Scotland), Christian Science Monitor, Cider Press Review, Cold Mountain Review, Confrontation, The Cultural Journal, English Journal, Epoch, Fire (UK), Flint Hills Review, Fox Cry Review, Gradiva (Italy), Greensboro Review, Hecale (Internet/UK), Kansas Quarterly, Karamu, The Kerf, Magyar Naplo (Hungary), Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Midwest Quarterly, New Letters, Pacific Review, Pedrada Zurda (Ecuador), Puerto del Sol, Queen’s Quarterly (Canada), Revista Solar (Mexico), Rosebud, Second Aeon (Wales), Sou’wester, Square Lake, Strangeroad (Internet), Writers’ Journal, plus the anthologies: American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, Ltd., 2009; Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets, Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru, 2008; Fathers: Poems About Fathers,St. Martin’s Press: 1998, Weavings 2000: The Maryland Millennial Anthology,Forest Woods Media Productions, Inc., St. Mary’s College, MD, and La Adelfa Amarga: Seis Poetas Norteamericanos de Hoy, Ediciones El Santo Oficio, Peru, 2003. Recent readings: SUNY at Albany, NY, 2006; Hendrick Hudson Free Library, Montrose, NY, 2006; Towson University, Towson, MD, 2006; PCA/ACA Conference, Boston, 2007, Ultra Violet Studio, Chelsea/NYC, 2007; WPA Gallery at Pound Ridge Reservation, Cross River, NY, 2008; Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) reading and workshop, Baltimore, MD, 2008; NCTE: Afro-American Read-In, Towson University, Towson, MD 2008 and 2009; Ramapo College, reading and presentation, 2009.