Easter Morning, the Telluride Free Box
She tested her alarm last night. It worked
and woke her up two hours before dawn.
(She doesn’t shower, Easters, but keeps on
the sweat suit that she sleeps in.) Then she drove her
brand-new car (like her last two, a Land Rover)
to the Free Box—it was still dark—and parked
across the street. Assorted SUVs,
half-laden with the latest thing in skis,
soon pulled up. Easter was the final week
of the season. They left Italian gloves
and sweaters, Gortex® coats, and once-or-twice-
worn gear, which she displays in her boutique
without first having to inspect for lice.
More than anyone else, therefore, she loves
the Free Box Easter morning and is willing
to wake up before God, to the alarm.
The Mexicans and Natives show at eight,
nine, ten; for the best loot that’s way too late,
on Easter. Her technique works like a charm.
And there’ll be tourists leaving town all day
and stuffing it, so how can people say
someone who wakes up earlier is “harm-
ing” anyone? This year she makes a killing.
Alligator Sky
I saw the alligator in the sky.
It roared a chilling silence.
Big sky. Big alligator. So you know I’m talking Montana.
First, still before dawn, I saw its eyes. Eyes like a fly’s,
a thousand little red lights over where I knew there’d been
the slope of a hill, all of yesterday.
Sure, they were TV towers or something like that, but I was groggy,
so I saw the beady eyes of a celestial monster.
Haven’t you done the same for want of caffeine?
And then it yawned. I knew it did,
for in the used car lot adjacent to the motel where I was staying,
all the pennants flapped at once and stayed erect.
The American flag at the motel, too.
Had they not been attached they would have been sucked
over to what was yesterday a hillside,
this morning a celestial swamp, where the scaley thing skulked
and then started swallowing the stars in the black sky,
stirring them up into his morning mouthwash.
One by one they went dim, but their light
oozed out of his leather-air hide to whiten the dark into day and there I saw—
in the darkness that wasn’t dark anymore
but just like the bright darkness of a lake—
the ripples of his hide covering that whole section of sky.
Sure I knew they were altocumulus clouds,
but I say “alligator sky” because
that morning they were an alligator.
Besides, what with the fierce breeze of its breath,
the Alligator of the Sky,
more real than the Man in the Moon,
trembled me with imagination
danger
and delight.
Missoula, MT
James B. Nicola is facilitator for the Hell’s Kitchen International Writers’ Round Table, which meets twice monthly at Manhattan’s Columbus Library: walk-ins are welcome. His children’s musical Chimes: A Christmas Vaudeville premiered in Fairbanks, Alaska, with Santa Claus in attendance, opening night.