He starts with with his height: six foot something
(as if he didn’t know) which is in fact bigger than mine.
We’ve talked about this (my tendency to self-compare)
but look at how close he is to the magnolias from up there.
Now he’s a poet too. He sees what I see only once
it’s fallen to the ground, making a mess of things
like I do, often without a sound. The inches added
won’t bring me closer to anyone (my parents on Magnolia
street for example) or anything. But he assures me that Spring
has a petal for everyone. Maybe it is all mission, like Rilke said.
Minor probable disasters waiting everywhere to blossom.
Even here within this mess, a menage that houses
things I have yet to confess, flowers that need only
a vase (and the slobberiest part of my kiss)
There’s a chance this works:
Meaning the odds are in our favor:
Meaning I’ll do better next time.
Arguments will be concluded, calls
answered, the dog fed even
without your constant reminders.
Romance will be back in vogue.
I’ll even read the Roy and Howe
you hold so close to your heart
just to have something to say
when you walk through the door.
You misunderstand: it’s impossible.
We’d have to try over and over again
before a conclusion can be made.
That’s how we’d know for sure.
Besides: the evidence is weak.
Meaning: the boxes are packed:
Meaning: my arms are slumped
like a broken slinky and will remain
so. I’ve learned who you are.
And I am stuck in my ways.
Twiggy spider
on my yoga mat
thank you for undoing
the past hour
of self folding
and holding with your
unannounced appearance.
I know
you’ve been watching
and have suggestions
for how
I carry my body.
After all I have
a thousand times
the neurons and only
a fraction
of your intention
and grace.
You walk on eight
stilettos and still
men like me
chase beauty
and women
and forget
you exist.
But we get each other.
We’re foreign
to ourselves
but not strangers.
We give
birth
and die.
And in
the in-between
we weave
and cradle
worlds
with our extremities.
We might even
for a second
acknowledge
the other
in passing:
I a moving
mountain,
You a pebble
who has seen
it all
from your
small corner
of the world.
How beautiful it is
that landlocked bodies
of water will find
their way to the ocean
through crevasses
no one else can see.
That something as light
as wind can carry
the heaviness of traveled waves
for miles through miles
of emptiness and longing
to distant shorelines
where at last they may find
a witness to their journey.
There goes the body again
trying to find answers
where only questions exist.
Where do we go from here?
Why does hope feel so heavy?
Who am I without love and direction?
Rilke said to live
the questions, as if
by following the curves
of their bodies
you would be led
to the full-stop of your life.
Of course,
everyone has their answers
and I am still here
writing of curves and bodies.
Such is life they say.
Did Rilke live his?
is to sit in coffee shops
with strangers who feel
like home, every one of us
a vessel for croissants
and coffee we don’t taste.
We sunbathe and drink
behind windows
and wonder why
we’re still so pale.
Meanwhile the sun
continues to give
life to the land
and anyone who sees
that the exit
is the entrance,
that coffee
was meant to be enjoyed
in colder hands.
On the day you fell
the life you lived
the future you wanted
came down from the clouds
to taste the cold Earth.
The strong column of bone
that carried your spirit
was crushed
not by the fishing boats
you once sailed in the West
not by the numerous hours
you spent hunched over
printing photos in the dark
for acclaimed men
of New York City
but by mere coincidence
a misplaced foot perhaps
in a life that couldn’t keep up with you.
Still that didn’t stop you
from peeking over the fence
and startling me with your big glasses
and bigger hello one early morning.
You bent over and gathered
some sprigs of lavender
from your lovely garden.
A housewarming gift you said
for the new kid on the block.
Then there were the eggs
I wanted but couldn’t eat,
freshly laid by your loved hens.
Their happiness was a familiar sound
in the quiet dawn that housed our street.
I heard yours too in the way
you talked to them as if
they were sacred, royalty.
“They only eat organic.”
Even the wildflowers listened.
You always asked them
to come home with you
(“if they wanted to” of course)
and they responded always
with glee. They knew
what care and joy felt like.
Rising from my own fall
after all these years
now I know it too.
There is always the trace of you
in these places we once called ours.
I’m here again today and
now they’re only mine and yours.
I come from time to time
just to see if things have changed.
Not much has
though there’s a new couch now.
And there is still
that familiar knot
in the butter of this biscuit
as savory as our kisses were.
My coffee is still dark
like the blades of your eyes,
your rooibos tea now
a touch lighter than mine.
count the possibilities
on your toes this time,
as if they were suddenly
released from the grip
of boots too small
for feet meant to kiss the earth.
Walk until your feet need rest
and rest. Worry for awhile
and let the sand remind you
of rocks and change. Then
go and find yourself
on the other side of the shore
where love always fits
in places it once couldn’t.
You’re a painting
You’re a body of photographs
framed in a movie reel –
You’re music
You’re a guitar that sings
on love-stained strings –
You’re something to behold
a rose never to touch
a smile just for show –
Does the hunger ever end?
even in romance and pretense
even in more-than-just–friends –
You’re poetry
You’re heaved sonnets to a delicate love song–
An Oliver and a Dickinson
in a world that wants
Cummings
and Nerudas –