come home
you should know to
never leave me
alone
because i’ll eat too much sugar
and later when i’m crashing
i’ll blame you for it
anyway
Tempting light blue skies
Just when I want to bask
Under your cool blue flow
Gusts of frozen wind
Blow upon me in mean wisps
Freezing me like a statue
I search for warmth
Under your daydream smile
Or think of your loving words or phrases
To duck and cover
To come out of my blue state
You made me feel normal whatever that is made me
feel crystal clear you took the scattered puzzle pieces
of my mind and lined them up in order and pressed
them into a complete-me shape you had the wife
buzzing about miracles beaming about pleasant
conversations and joyful interactions with the boys
you had the house spotless without mania you had
my stomach full without depression you had me
at first taste first swallow you had me spinning
in place like a basketball on a finger balanced
and whole but the knuckle gave way beneath
a price tag and the threat of lost insurance you
abandoned me for cash you sold out you sold me out
A place met once
out of how many should haves
sitting in silver chairs and searching
for words to say?
I long to change that ending
so I come here every day
and for lightning, pray,
to bring us back to life.
We had it once
when I was freshly distracted
by a pretty devil
I thought could be the one.
Instead there is yet another
empty seat across from me,
on the table
all the time lost between us.
Blush remains but the flesh
pinks less and less and the laughter dims
from a clear bell to
a rustling thing.
The smell of catalpa, but two days too late,
when the white crinkles brown at the edge, and the
violet streaks have gone and
like the spent blossoms
to their invisible suitors,
she no longer wants to love you.
She does it like pressing thumbnail
into callus, like clipping your fingernails
too close, like eating pizza
you damn well know
is too hot. It is the strands of gum flesh
she tongues from the blister.
She always wants to make it
a flower, but it is the inevitable
zinnias on the compost heap, after
the first bouquet ever
more abundant than
the farmer’s market’s spoils.
A bloom, yes, but etiolate;
she loves you, but no longer wants to.
The boy stacking avocados is in love with the girl
arranging bananas over exotic straw-fringed paper,
see her nosering twinkle in his careful glances,
but she’s in love with the girl in the eggs.
Spice canister in her hand, a woman stiffens
with memory, lip rippling. Was it a flavor?
A voice that would request extra? Or none?
She puts it back, pushes forward out of the aisle
and the past. Three boys have pirated the cart
from their exhausted father. He hesitates, wondering
how loud is too loud, as they Madmax away.
When he cups his hand to shout he conceals a proud smile.
Gentle faux thunder rattles over produce; light mist.
And you, did you find what you were looking for?
Years pass, but in my
dreams
the kitchen
door still leads to my first
garden, pale zinnias waning in
shade
daylilies roaming
through ivy.
My glorious ignorance! Each year to
start again.
The shift in light is subtle—
from afternoon to late afternoon.
Outside the window a single oak
bends over lake bowing as if
asking his reflection
to dance with him
until trunk rots
and bark slips
piece by piece
into her arms.
Inside two women sit
on a lush sofa—one lies
arm raised over her head
the other sits by her legs
holding a froth of peony blossoms
preparing laurel lei sash
with thin quick fingers.
With each movement the velvet
they wear rustles and shifts
like waves
like the murmur of birds
like the light outside
all that stands between oak
and his lover in the lake.
Inside and out each swath of lilies—
in garden bed and vase
porcelain with scarlet centers—
hangs suspended in air
like a shock of stars
whose light grows
with the darkening day.
