It seems to happen at least

1
Sometimes late at night
I think of that day at the coffeeshop
when I took your picture & you refused to smile.
It plays over & over in my mind in a loop,
a dog chasing its tail.

2
In middle school
the boys wore shirts with loops on the back.
The girls who were sweet on them
would sneak up behind & yank off the loops
as keepsakes, declarations of interest. My loops
remained in place.

3
Hula hoop, lasso, engagement ring, noose.

4
The planets move around the sun
in loops like a rubber band
stretched between my index finger
& thumb, elliptical.

5
You looped your arm
around mine, walked with me
a while, then
let me go. 

6
My mother found crochet late in life,
her hook looping strands of yarn into sweaters
& sofa throws. She was making me a comforter
when she died. A friend of hers finished it,
closing the circle.

7
It was some dark matter
that drew us together, dark energy
that pushed us apart.

8
I make the same discoveries,
the same mistakes, over
& over again, a snake
swallowing its tail.

9
I’ve been happily single for years now
but when someone asks me out for coffee,
I say yes. 

It’s June again,
sweet young girls in cotton dresses,
church bells chime at dinner hour,
jonquils lifting up their trumpets,

and you and I,
slipping into the winter of our marriage,
the cold shoulder and frozen stare,

I watch you undress and ready for bed,
slower, yes, and battle-scarred, but beautiful,
as defined by these eyes
with their softening focus,

and think how fortunate I am
to be spending June again
with you.

Waking up from this dream isn’t fair,
because I can still taste you when my tongue’s tip traces my bottom lip

The morning sun pulls me from memories of us together
Young
Wild
Unbridled

We are our most primal selves in the cover of the night
but I want you here next to me
under these linen covers
darkness shrinking, becoming small shadows on old wooden floors
where I want us both to step barefoot from slumber
towards elsewhere together

Old
Content
Restrained

Dreaming isn’t fair,
because it’s not with you.

Begging Sweet Revenge Changes Friday

Tell me, he says, with his tail in the air,

If you know how much I love them,

Why sometimes there are lil’ soups

And sometimes there are not?

It is simple,

I say to him, It is because good things

Do not always come easy and sometimes

 you have to catch a mouse.

I grew tired of counting places,
leaving town a year too late. I’ve settled
now where the slow twining creek is clay

brown & ripples through the wildwood
like a wedding train. I grew tired
of counting places & so I turned to

stable shelter, prayed to tame my gypsy
course. I marked the proper names, studied
the bottom of the slow twining creek.

Burrowing mayfly, speckled hellbender.
Alabama cavefish.  In water, how their lacy-jelled
eggs trembled. I counted their places under

river rock & branch. Dreaming, grit-brown
water rolled over me like a wand
& in the slow twining creek I transformed

to slick-shelled mussels. Nudged
by dust & gravel bits, cradled by mud,
I spit pearls from trouble & count my place
in the slow twining creek & its slack embrace

I am a mountain
my head the crest
hair long fog clouds
that float slopes
valleys where deer leap
feed on supple leaves
that vine my feet  

I am a woman
with a winter tree rooted
in my crown. I capture
a silver sliver moon in the lacuna
of my black briar-branches
that pierce the loopy blue, blue sky      

~ Inspired by the art of Amanda Clark

Everyone that I know has had relationships finish

Some had amicable closures

Others were hurt, but still got answers

Our ending was not so kind

We were torn from each other

In a motion so violent we were torn with it

A life line that was cut too short

Rope fraying at the lacerated end, its twine reaching out for the missing part of it

Exposed nerve sensitive to even air

Everyone else has closure

Everyone gets to move on

But I still seem to find pieces of you in me

Like we were so tightly bound I lost myself in you

Like I don’t know who to be without you