New Poetry by Mike Dillon

Adagio in April

Young, maybe thirty, 

dark-haired, pretty

as the memory of beauty,

she knelt in the public garden 

weeding between the tulips and blue bells

and looked up before I passed

to cast a dark-eyed smile 

soft as a butterfly wings.

And returned to her work.

Much older, but not all the way,

I saw the beauty of her face rise again,

sure as sunrise. Our eyes blinked 

for a breath-span before she

looked down.

And I went on my way — 

Bede’s sparrow in its brief dash

through the warmth of the mead hall

between two doors wide open

to winter and winter.

- © Mike Dillon 2022

Mike Dillon lives in a small town on Puget Sound northwest of Seattle. His most recent book is a chapbook, The Return, from Finishing Line Press (March 2021). He is a previous contributor to Blue Pepper.