The Guy V. Molinari    

    – In honor of the Staten Island Ferry    

She shuttles in her guts the zoned-out
throngs who take for granted the watery
caesura from home to work to home
immersed in the glow of cellphones
while the verdigris torch salutes them.

In this amalgam of steel formed into faux
stone, cement and wood, in echos’ echo,
passengers shuffle toward seats like atoms.
They repel any touch of the coat sleeve,
any sidelong look, and they only feel

the glare of a watch at the end of a row,
or rapper’s spectacle of neon-pink laces
untied to trip on and recover, bouncing to
the buzz of earplugs, while the crescent
prow glides from the groin of the dockslip. 

A barrelled, tan policeman pets his pitbull
dazed by the harbor’s glittery plateau—
Wall Street trader bedraggled in pinstripes
squinches his eyes to blips in the market—
and who is this child waving a dollar found

gummed to his shoe?  Enter Yankee-hatted
homeless who crumple like foil. Enter oil-
soiled janitors who slip on gloves for the
5 o’clock shift under the din of passengers
debating gas’s rising prices in New Jersey,

New York. How you need a jumbo mortgage
to buy a café latté, that this ferry is free!—
which ricochet off laminate cabinets
clogged with lemon-tinted life vests.
We jolt as we dock to a fugue of horns,

and nun kissing a cross before the stampede.    

Mrs. Moore on Elizabeth Street                                

—I am sick of the seam-tight jeans, bleached,
blanched    the fried voices    The NYU students

flitting in the duel of shadows under the scaffolding
of Elizabeth Street    where boutiques are never

on sale   —rushing to shop, to class   and some
blonde thing cantilevers Cliff Notes over the cliff

of a dumpster   drops two used tubes of lip gloss 
—coral blaze & birthday suit   which plump my lips  

taste like thrift-shop frosting in Shreveport, 1960
at Aunt Millie’s funeral  —the coffin coated in hot-pink

carnations   and now designer cakes sell in pricey cafés
on Avenue A   where a cop thumbs his belt loops

and dreams a bit   —he’s my shrink & my shroud, 
winks & slips me 20 bucks to get him coffee, a donut

& late edition of the Post   and I let him rant, for sure   
how these rich girls will suffer too  —brush your gums  

pay your taxes   —I have a little business selling orphaned
heels the girls abandon when they spill out of bars 

—mismatched pairs only 50 a pop from my yellow cart 
and I dress in faux Chanel, of course, and wash at Star-

bucks so nobody thinks “homeless”  —a Brand these days
without a zip code, tho the City gave me a Box P.O.

but weren’t we all a step in the shoeless exodus
from Leviticus to Psalms?  I still dream of Aunt Millie,

her sugary picnics, my boy laughing into tatters
under a magnolia —my willowy girl preening her gown

swinging like a bell   —her name, ‘Marguerite’, a hymn
I whisper to bathe me in filaments of sorrow

while Jesus bends blue over shards of my children
in the rosary window   —and this freshman (no hello)

politely asks if I can find a mate for her blue silk stiletto
and I tell her, first, I do have a name.  It is Mrs. Moore.

*

Native of Vouliagmeni, GREECE and Martha’s Vineyard, MA., Stelios Mormoris is CEO of SCENT BEAUTY, Inc., which markets beauty products worldwide.  Citizen of Greece and the U.S., Stelios was born in New York, and lived most of his adult life in Paris.

He received a B.A. in Architecture from Princeton University, and an M.B.A. from INSEAD [Institut d’Européen d’Administration des Affaires] in Fontainebleau, France.

He has been published in Agni, Beyond Words Literary Review, Book of Lit Matches, Crab Creek Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Eunoia Review,  Fourth River, Gargoyle, Good Life Review,  High Shelf Press,  Humana Obscura, Midwest Poetry Review,  Narrative Magazine, Nassau Literary Review,  Press, Spillway,  Sugar House Review,  Tupelo Quarterly,  Verse,  Whelk Walk Review and other literary journals.