I was wrong yesterday,
but that’s behind me now.
Today is a cloudless sky!
I’ve girded my loins with good intentions.
Oh, past harm, I know ye not!
So perhaps when I die,
and CSI arrives,
my soul can slip
under the yellow tape,
my disease undetected.
Who hasn’t yearned to move to the salsa and the mambo?
Who doesn’t long to burn 500 calories an hour?
We were born to Zumba.
At the North Lexington Y, our aging faces break into smiles
as Shar, our instructor, joins us in the pool
during the chorus.
At the High Street Y, a faster crowd checks itself out in the mirrors.
Hoping to shake our hips like Lindsay,
we move to “Firehouse” with Daddy Yankee.
We find our shimmying inner diva.
We savor our grapevine shuffles.
We gather to sweat.
O world I cannot hold thee close enough.
Someone already wrote this line and felt
The passion implied in his sweep of words.
As we move gracefully through later decades,
Each added candle adds to the mounting total,
As the fire grows higher and brighter.
We stand by to watch the light spread ever wider
As passion bends us to stretch our forgiveness
Beyond the narrow scope of yesterday.
Should we be both judge and executioner,
When our own fraility promises so little?
Will we embrace the light, each burning candle?
Did the early poet cherish his exhubriant joy
Of the world that winsome day? Perhaps he became
All elders on the cusp of ever wiser understanding.
A word borrower I have become, spread so thin
I could become invisible even to myself. Yet joy
In words writ well lingers on in today’s sunshine.
we try to name
the moment
before it escapes
who can capture
the words of the five-
year-old
the clouds look
like they are just
hanging there one
looks like an old man
a wizard
in a paper boat
sailing nowhere
in particular and
taking us along
I could see it as my eyes closed
swirling and fixed
red purple green and blue
fingerprints of the light
nebulae behind the eyelids
I could taste them as I breathed
red, cherries and apples picked off the ground in a hurry
orange, citrus spray from cutting lemons and oranges digging deep beneath your fingernails
blue, blue is a strange one, like silent perfume
green, asparagus and red bell peppers with no dressing
purple, chilled berry wine summertime hooch
I was younger then
I had alot to learn
about life
and psilocybin
This morning
when we open our cards
both are bad puns–
“I love you a hole punch”
“hey there, hot-tea”–
and thirteen years in
we affirm our
shared life:
nerd humor
small gestures
hot black tea and good books
rising early for quiet
waiting for the light
footsteps shuffling overhead
promptly at seven
when their clock turns green
Empathy my strength or
empathy my weakness?
Empathy traps me
in your loose ends
knotted up in my heart.
Empathy teaches me
how to forgive,
teaches me
how to forget,
can it teach me
how to trust again?
Empathy softens me
hardens you
justifies you.
Empathy
breathes silent reminders
keeps memories around
to drown
me.
Empathy makes you human.
paints you rash
it asks
What would I do? I say
Love would find a way.
But in my empathy,
is that not just as acceptable
an answer for tomorrow
as I would like it to be
yesterday?
Empathy, ushering in
the summer,
always so very hard on me
year after year,
by ensuring our connection
as it decays.
Empathy makes you me
but for me to be me
I must deny me
and take me from you.
Empathy makes me fear you
tears wrought by the permanence
rolling off my tongue, is this
my lesson?
How do I deny my empathy
like the villain it has
always seemed to be
to me?
How much
must I give
of myself
to escape
from you
alive?
I am so sick of cowards
The voluntarily retarded
Living in gated communities
Thinking their maid and their
gardener love them like family
I’m so sick of being stereotyped
Called horrible names
Sure that I hate that one
cause they do that with them
And this one ’cause of how they look
Only because of my sex, my age
And the color of my skin
How easy and convenient this cowardice
As the bullies stir the mob
I hear the shallow slogans
Roll my eyes as they call me names
I’m none of those things
Yet
So in this sand I’ve drawn a line
I have exactly as much respect for your religion
as you have for mine
I have exactly as much respect for your opinion
as you have for mine
I’ll show you exactly as much respect
as I see in your eyes
But that’s probably not true
Because I try to show everyone
what used to be common decency
But it appears the Club of Mutual Respect
Has a membership of only one
