Reflections

by Mark Katrinak

            The days have stricken me with lesser light—
            a shadow of myself in photographs,
            a photogenic dropout, cameras cruel.
            Does this reflect a mood, the mirror’s truth?
            The mirror can’t give more than it can take.
            The sunrise gives the eye acute perspective,
            the mountain sunsets dramatize goodbye.
            But any of a multitude of selves
            come out at any hour of the day.
            Which one is true? Which one appears at noon
            when shadows minimize themselves? What self
            remains as shadows lengthen on the yard?
            Reflection seems a science fiction, more
            than merely mirrors or a single lens. 

Red

            Seeing red, quickest flush
            populating face, knowing rage
            insists on being first and so
            correct you are, although the blood
            pressure rises, just in the littlest
            of crises, situations quite systolic.

            Dilapidating barns and wheelbarrows,
            red hints on pouches of tobacco seen
            along a rural road as trafficless
            as Yogananda’s meditative mind—,
            promotion in the plainest sense,
            a redness lightened into ease.

            Woman, red river in your lineage;
            cleanliness is the final word.
            Myself, I can’t quite quantify,
            least purify to your degree,
            reason alone to never be enraged,
            despite your trail of red herrings.

            Caviar we’ve tried, red sea bream’s
            another matter, mass of fancy eggs
            for other people’s palettes, seas.
            You lighten red to pink and I’m
            marooned to something deepening
            to dark; my red is lacking light.

Hawk

            Its flight lets loose a passing silhouette                                    (
            across the field with random stones and bits
            of broken glass and grayish crawling things
            a casual observer fails to see,
            a flight of perfect pivoting above the green,
            a calculated turning honing in
            on temporary stirrings in the grass,
            broadcast of rounded wing agility
            above a rodent’s hungry wandering
            or smaller birds attending to requests
            initiated from their hidden nests.
            A master of the sky with predatory style,
            diurnal, diligent, it spans its wings
            proportionate to warm-blooded duress.

BIO

Mark Katrinak has a chapbook, Blue Meridian, forthcoming from Kelsay Books. He has had poems published in Bayou, Southwestern American Literature, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Lullwater Review, Pinyon, The Opiate, Pensive, and other literary publications. Originally from Cleveland, OH, Mark is now a resident of Golden Valley, AZ. When not working for a mental health agency, he enjoys birds, cats, fine wine, and spending time with his family.