Time After Time
FROM THE ONLINE CHAPBOOK FLAMINGO PARK
Time After Time
Miriam Levine
Lightnin’ Hopkins sings, “won’t be blue
all ways,” while the mourning dove
makes its three-note bleating sound
and the blues goes on without a stop
in Mary Lyn’s head. It’s time
to fill the water dish and feed the dog
nudging her thigh. The dog
drinks and shakes, stares with blue
eyes. Water drops fall. On time
the tide, the moon. The dove,
set like a clock, cannot stop.
Mary Lyn gets used to the sound,
though sometimes she’d rather the sound
of a siren though it makes the dog
cower and bark. “Poor Charro. Stop,
stop”—Mary Lyn would yell a blue
streak in the past, but when Charro dove
into a wave she would think: If only his time
were longer. Let the years blur, time
out of mind. Why not sing and sound
out notes—nothing like that dove
Mr. Monotonous. She’ll take the dog
out to wander again by the great blue
Atlantic that will not stop.
Why should Mary Lyn stop
when the moon is high and time
seems forgetful? The sky is navy blue
just before black when the sound
of thunder startles the dog.
Finally the insistent dove
is still and Mary Lyn sleeps till the dove
wakes and starts. There seems no stop
to the wearisome sob. The sleepy dog
stretches as if for the first time.
Clink, clink goes the sound
of Charro’s tags, his eyes always blue;
Mary Lyn’s plays Chet’s “Time after Time . . . .
“You’ve kept my love so young . . . . ” "Don’t stop!”
she prays; the tracks go on; Chet’s singing “Little Girl Blue.”
Flamingo Park
Miriam Levine
2026
Flamingo Park is Miriam Levine’s gift to you. The setting of this online chapbook is the Flamingo Park neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida. The themes, for the most part, are love, death, joy—laughter and tears—the longstanding themes of lyric poetry.