The first Featured Poem.
This piece is written by W.L. Grimsley.
Yes, of course
In the square in front of the cathedral the tarot and palm readers didn’t consider my future.
Perhaps they knew that future to me was the next footfall.
The sounds of the dulcimer were fairy dances upon strings.
The night was as perfect as wind.
We walked around where the homeless were hungry and the cats were full,
up the pedestrian park to the river walk where i asked if you wanted to see something pretty.
We passed drunk lovers on the sidewalk, caught a bench at the top of the steps to the left.
I saw the river in black and white and then in sepia. You said it was purple or sienna or peach.
The bridge was lit up like Christmas.
I say it’s copper and you nod.
Your kisses were deeper than before.
Your mouth was the flavor of the big easy, your tongue jazz.
The rail crossing bells resounded, but no rail car ever came.
You asked if i would, not if i could or if i will,
and i became yes in your embrace between your lips with the barges humming in the background
before words were literally yes, of course.
The police siren applauded our connection and we lay in each others tastes until memory etched goodbye
to Jax Brewery, Artillery Park, and the Mississippi.
10 Cities/10 Years 
I enjoy the story of this poem, told almost entirely through imagery. It’s a romantic stroll through a very specific place that feels like it could be a couple’s first date or their 50th wedding anniversary.
Especially, of late, I’ve become fascinated with dichotomies, juxtaposing two seemingly opposing ideas or images in a way that proves to be complementary. That’s what initially stuck out to me about this poem, this couple that sees the river in starkly different shades, the starving homeless and well-fed strays, the police siren as something exultant, not worrisome. Rather than contradicting each other, these ideas reinforce the underlying imagery.
It’s an affecting poem, one with a lot of great lines that could be pulled out and quoted, but it’s better to leave them in the whole.
Wendy, that’s striking! Wow, sometimes I forget the power that inhabited that cafe. I remember now. I remember.