From my mind to

your mind: What is happiness 2 a writer? A thoughtful publisher, full of consideration, responds 2 submissions by return mail!!!!!!! YES. It makes up 4 all the lonely moments, just U & the comptr, or when the comptr froze, or ate Ur work––isn't the dog anymore---rejectins by return mail, hrs, days editng, editng or, or.........

The gd news? happened 2 me. I sub my poem, PORTRAIT OF A COUPLE, to Dc Ricci professor @ University Albany-SUNY & editr/publishr of http://MyStoryLives.blogspot.com/ & 2 days, later, sept 29, her e-m said: This is a poem you cannot miss....Sometimes a poem comes along and it just takes your breath away. "Portrait of a Couple" is one such poem. Don't miss the way California writer Camincha captures a couple's "dance"–– sept 30, Dc Ricci's e-m said: you hit one out of the park, as we say in baseball. Hi Camincha, your poem really is a winner! I have asked my 46 college freshmen at SUNY Albany to read it for Friday, along with poems By Sharon Olds and Charles Bukowski. Your work stands well among the Best, my friend.

PORTRAIT OF A COUPLE

I see them dancing. Where did they go wrong?

Was it because they turned too quickly?

Was it because they danced too fast?~

She learned though. And survived him by not dwelling on the past.

And when the memories kept intruding, the years of hunger,

recriminations, the hatred. Yes, the hatred. The hope. Yes, the hope.

The love. Yes, the love. She thought only of the dancing they did

in those years before he made his last journey. Before he went

into that last number. Before he took his last step.

She's sure he knew. She's sure he remembered too,

many times, years later, El Mambo Perez Prado Aaaaaaaaaccc.

The Cha Cha Cha Ay! que rico Cha Cha Cha.

They danced it in that Bar Lounge in San Francisco.

A Peruvian band was in San Francisco, friends called to tell them.

They got a baby sitter. Changed, The Little Black Dress.

for her with the white buttons. The opened shirt for him

with slacks and sport jacket. Put gas in the car. An extra dollar,

it went far then. And they were off. And danced. And he played the

maracas and the palitos He was good at it all.

And the women warming the plastic covers looked up begging him

with their eyes to dance with them. He obliged. Ever the dancer,

ever the charmer. And when he walked them back to their

plastic cover seats they were all aglow. Rouged cheeks all the

more prominent, and lips as moist as the behinds they sat on.

He was also a body builder when body building hadn't even been invented.

So good, at so many things. Why wasn't in him then, to be a husband,

a father? Was it because his own hunger knawing at him was more

powerful than his children's? And had to be fed, every moment of every day.

So he couldn't feed anyone else morally, emotionally, physically?

There is no going back now. I see you as you were then.

The young, much too young, good looking couple full of promises.

I see them dancing. Where did they go wrong?

Was it because they turned too quickly?

Was it because they danced too fast?