At Last
I sit across the table from you
40 years has passed
you fold and unfold
your hands
you have beautiful hands
something I had forgotten
Cars crash on a dirt road that was
Fast metal flash collides with
horse power from the spirits of animals
I picture you as the moon
With some kind of gravitational pull
That begs me to lay low
As i follow your beck and call
I’ve been watching the clouds
Waiting for something
To finally stop me in my tracks
But i can’t sit here and pretend
You aren’t the reason
There are stars
Shooting out of my eyes
Our mind paints the perfect version of them
A detailed piece mistaken for one of Picasso’s
The bright blue skies and yellow sun
Their wavy brown hair and sea foam green eyes
A laugh that could make the whole world smile
And a hand created specifically for mine
But our hearts know what is the truth
That sometimes it’s grey skies and rain
Salty tears and no hand to hold
Our hearts are like the parents
And our brain is the child
Even though our heart knows the truth
It won’t shatter our imagination
It will let us dream and hope
But it will build a few white fences
To keep us safe.
It will be there with a band-aid ready to go
For when we get hurt
Because we are taught through lessons
What love should be
But only lessons that pertain to us,
We cannot appreciate the sun
Without having the rain
And we can’t learn to appreciate the rain
Until we realize we can dance through the storms
Driving towards a
dark horizen yesterday,
had me reminiscing
about another storm
from several years before.
It caught us on the side of a moutain—
wind lashing the rain so hard
against the car that I could barely
hear my father’s precise instructions
over the stridency.
And while I,
white knuckled on ten and two,
swept my panicked eyes across the road
searching for a safe place to stop not
already occupied by wide-eyed motorists
my father remained as
grounded and
unyielding
as the moutain
below us.
His presence steadied me.
My grip loosened.
My heart slowed;
no longer matching the
frenzied pulse of the storm.
Now, as I drive towards
this dark horizon,
I smile. I am as grounded
and unyielding
as the moutain from my childhood.
the streetlights shone,
hazy but there
the light streaked into
the backseat of my car
illuminating your face,
we pressed together
my body cupped
against yours
we performed a
little night dance
it was soft
& brutal
after, we looked out
at the quiet night
the pavement cold
under my feet
I have a heart two swords short,
The part that was edible
wasn’t so bad, he said kindly
of the greens stir fry, after I’d tried
to scrape off crusty blackened scabs.
