‘The Day I Found My Name’ & ‘Mountaintop Optometrist’

Jacque Margaux is a sad Franco-American poet who writes to cheer himself up. His poem, girl writer en café, was published on Words Faire.

*Alaina Hammond is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and visual artist.*

The Day I Found My Name

I remember the day I found my name:
I had been nameless as a raindrop,
but one day I was walking along the winter street
scattered with dusty snow
that blew about in the razor breeze,
the concrete sidewalk was flanked by hard icy snow on either side
and the sky was crispy blue like spearmint
the sun was weakened but shining
my corduroy jacket and black winter hat were on
(among other clothes)
and my hands in pockets like two wood stoves
when my foot kicked something unexpected,
I curiously looked down and there was my name on the ground
I crouched down, reached one hand through the cold air to grab it and picked it up,
put it in my pocket and it was mine,
that’s the day I found my name.

Mountaintop Optometrist

An hour and a half from the trailhead
we four were sweaty and panting
among the calm and collected tourists
who had driven to the top
(cheaters, we wanted to scream, but didn’t),
she needed a quarter for the binoculars and I
(luckily)
had one that had been sitting in my bag
eager for this moment,
her hand brushed mine
(of course)
as she grabbed it from me,
the clouds were indiscernible
and she wanted to watch them
but we four could find nothing in them,
so she looked through the binoculars
and invited me to do the same,
we shared looking back and forth
at things amplified
from the mountaintop,
she looked through
while I adjusted the focus
(my arm close to her being)
and I quipped about the eye-doctors
(better one or two?)
and she laughed
which was my goal
and I felt glad,
then the time clicked and our eyes were blinded
and the clouds were still indiscernible
and she still didn’t love me.

Jacque Margaux is a sad Franco-American poet who writes to cheer himself up. His poem, girl writer en café, was published on Words Faire.

‘girl writer en café’

Jacque Margaux is a Franco-American writer and hopeless romantic with a sensitive piscine soul. His poetry is his therapy. To cope with the loss of all those who he fears to approach, he writes poetry about them. He nurses his broken heart in Upstate New York. Some of his work may be found on the Instagram page of his close acquaintance, @notrileycreative.

girl writer en café

She had eyes like mossy tree bark
that looked at me just once
but I saw the forest of her soul through the trees of her eyes,
My unworthy gaze met hers for the first and only time
And in that moment (I admit) my heart reached for the sun,
She went back to writing in her small notepad
at the table next to mine,
Her rimless glasses bending low to the paper
as she wrote shorthand,
What could she be writing?
I wish I had the courage to ask
but since my youth had been shy and yellow bellied
and will forever never know,
All I have is her short dark hair,
small silver hoop earrings,
Small-chested pink t-shirt
and white platform converse
meeting at the end of a long denim skirt,
My coffee got cold beside my neglected computer
as I snuck glances her writing-preoccupied way,
Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast mere words on a page
with no story or concept
as I struggled to not soak her presence in like a sponge
but failed miserably,
She stood to leave and my sunny heart eclipsed,
When she was gone I could still aftertaste her lingering memory,
But I could finally focus on my work
and begin to wring out the sponge
onto this page.'

Jacque Margaux is a Franco-American writer and hopeless romantic with a sensitive piscine soul. His poetry is his therapy. To cope with the loss of all those who he fears to approach, he writes poetry about them. He nurses his broken heart in Upstate New York. Some of his work may be found on the Instagram page of his close acquaintance, @notrileycreative.