Joyeux

And did I remember to tell you
how the raspberry morning light
poked through the naked branches,
to settle itself
softly across your back?
You were snoring, of course-
but your rosy wide shoulders next to mine,
the chilly air and our hot feet-
it was like someone had swathed the world in cotton
and left us to sleep together in pale warm quiet.

Fog

One of those days when
the end of the dock disappears in
an impressionistic swirl of cloud,
when everything is washed paler and
silence echos for miles across the window of water.
Lying face down, I hung my head
over the edge, hair brushing the green water,
let the blood rush, let the world turn. Let my ears
roar, you beside me, the air so wet, so
full of things to say.

I'm worried- the movies in my head are on replay.
I'm waiting for reality. I've been looking for it but
it slips away- I'm not sure it's here,
among the palm trees and the bricks,
I keep looking but all I find is the green water
and the gray dock and your silence.

Construction

After you hung up, I sat
staring at the brick walls of the room
the geometric red, the white an anonymous immigrant
laid in even stripes a decade ago,
boxy moments, even smooth time,
twelve stories of patient layers.

Not every stone is a struggle- but this one is.
After you hung up, I paused- inhaled-
and cemented.

12:34

The piles grew- a lifetime of possessions
in cardboard. We taped my life and you lifted
it into the trunk.
Months of moments, leading to this-

It was something like lead
deep in the pit of my stomach, the second
I turned to you,
the Subaru idling beside me.
There was no language, only a buzzing falling silence-
your arms, my face on your shirt,
and then it was over.

Photography

It was always
horizons
for you, in shades of forest and blue and foam.
You framed them
carefully, adjusted the light, fiddled
with the crisp edges of distant mountainous clouds.

It was always pebbles for me,
the ones I polished in my hand,
rubbing away the grit as I
watched you reel in the vast empty space
and settle it beside us.

I don't know where this came from (II)

Every night that I wake
in the dead of night, the death of night
when the sun is just a tint of grey in the east,
the crickets humming their summer tune-
I forget
for just a moment-
and then you punch another hole in my chest.

Time

Its like water, like
sand, like chocolates I keep on eating because I just can't help it.
I can't look at you.
I am too afraid.

Goldilocks Paradox

In the den of evil and fright I pause
to taste the mornings and evenings left behind.
Audacity.
Crouching in a foreign home, I cannot
help but be fascinated by the debris.
Remains, discarded. I want to learn how to learn,
I want to dig through a stranger’s banana peels and tin cans and find
meaning. Definition.
I am lost in these puzzles of refuse, these crosswords
of time and place,
sudokus and jigsaws of home.
Sprawled on the floor, I am a trespasser
of curious intent,
I am sticking my fingers
in all your pies, I am dissatisfied.
You disappoint me, with your packeted sugar.
You do not scare me. I have uncovered
your ordinariness,
show me those claws. I dare you.

Thursday

In the green darkness of early morning
I woke in the silence of snowfall.
Restless in my flannel nest, I could only
lie, eyes full of dark soft
snow, landing on my heavy chest.
And so I waited,
pillowed and weighted-
wishing and wishing for you.

Desert

Drizzle me with honey,
fill my hair with chocolate, paint
my stomach with orange glaze.
Make of me a delicacy.
Spin sugar from fingertip to elbow-
cover my eyes with raspberries, I beg of you,
smother me in puff pastry,
take what you will, only
don't leave me behind,
I beg of you.

January Alley (for my dad on his 59th)

A potato moon hangs low over the horizon,
the roads are a paste of sand and old snow.
Quiet passing lawns glow white in the dusk
as the little black car rumbles through the evening.
No lights on the island, black trees reflected
in the navy glass of the water.
The little house is nestled under dark trees,
the white shapes of submerged wheelbarrows,
rakes, and bicycles dot the front yard.
A gust of ice and woodsmoke fills the nose.
The windows paint squares of yellow light on the snow.
A cat twists about your ankles as you step out,
pumpkin colored even in the dusk,
his nose dark with the cold.
He follows you as you climb the icy steps
and open the stubborn red door into warmth.