A walk without headphones

The mood is set

by red wine and fireflies.

And darkness

carrying a cool eastern breeze 

that travelled here on the edges of

this morning’s thunderstorm, 

with its raucous timpani.

I gawk at the silver-haired woman across the street,

who walks paced and steady.

She doesn’t notice me.

She listens to her digital book without headphones,

as she has every night this week,

inviting each resident on the block to hear her story.

“You do not have to listen but you will hear!”

 scream her sweaty arms as they swing.

O, how I wish my soul were as willing

to demand such attention.

For, seated on a tuft of gray pillow 

from my home’s front porch

I walk,

along the emotional causeway of my day.

listening alone

to my heart’s story.

Pockets

There is a hidden fabric to every day

that holds all preciousness close—

secretly resting untouched, until

you graze it—

swiftly, tenderly;

clutching it—

purposefully, desperately;

never taking

or replacing, it
is folded
into the contours
of this skin-and-bone-sewn soul

where I allow

only

your
hand
to reach in.

Grow

I was too small

to hold it all;
my soul needed an overhaul.

The dirt was dry,
the daisies died,
regardless of the tricks I tried.

It was a drought
that cleared it out
and set me on a turnabout.

New seed is sown,
fresh water flows—
it’s time to let my one life grow.

you fill everything

you fill
everything

slowly,
the way water fills the cracks
of sidewalk in my front yard
after an unexpected April snow

the way perfume fills the air
and wraps itself around pillowcases
in an empty bed

swiftly,
as beauty fills the spaces between us
and longing eyes fill with the glisten of delight
and fear and
love

you fill me
like a cat claws
with soft paws
and playful round eyes
as you bite your lip

and I flush
with the rush

of
the way
you fill
everything

Rounded Edges

The rounded edges 

of your hand,

soft and slick

across the palm,

gently press

into flesh.

Oh! To touch the heart

through touch of skin,

a tender lip to cheek, 

and warm arms of embrace.

Your eyes touch the air between us,

piercing through

the cloud of unknowing

to smile

at me,

at last.

The lurch of loneliness

loving you

held me

through the lurch 

of loneliness

—my stomach knew 

before my heart 

that it was already 

mid-fall

and as the rigor-mortis 

muscle of earth

caught me, death 

transmuted my soul.

I am new.

I will not let

affection, again,

awaken too soon.

You are a vision

You are vision
of something good coming my way;
I hear you
it is not you, and
I respect you.

Your journey leads, down
a path winding away
from the place we met

"The soul is seen best in candlelight,"
he said.
And I believe him now.

I saw your soul and mine, haunting
the dance of that night,
glimpsing the soft brush
of untouched skin
singed by shadow.

I meet you there, still
though you have never returned.
Your face is as dark
as my knowing of you

But I still see your form
half-stepping into the light.

Sober Saturday

Your face fades into the fog of dreamscape

as I reach across the bed to still the resonant sound

of morning come too quickly.

The day between us was a

middle-passage between death and life; 

Christ’s descent to the dead, and

freeing of every soul but mine.

By the time my feet touch the floor

I feel the familiar emptiness, in

my throat, in

my belly—

another sober Saturday—

schooling me the differing textures, of

pain-avoidance and pleasure, of

thirst and gluttony, of

love and lust,

want and need.

I want you close, both 

in the nearness, and in the 

spaces in-between.

But I need you as you are,

wherever you are,

whoever you are.

Sobriety is a prayer, divining

satisfaction with what is—

in the stillness and silence

of oneself where there is nothing

else to be with but me.