You are shelves holding the books, alphabetized and happy.
You are the ink soaked in the page.
Outdoors, you are the sea chasing the shore.
You are also the glowing candle flame at dusk,
bright and encumbered by no darkness.

However, you might be interested to know
You are not the broken window,
nor are you the dog's yipping bark
through the screen door.
You could never possibly be the
dog's bark.

Instead, you are the thin, glassy waves polishing the shore,
You are the steel bridge between two lands,
You might even be the sleeping apples, tucked inside the pie.
I am quite sure you are also the handshake between two strangers,
as well as the writing on this page.

You should also know that, in all the plentiful imagery of the world,
I am the needle crackling on the vinyl record.
I am also the artist's filthy paintbrush.
I can also be, at times, the tea steeped too long,
and of course, I am the postcard, en route.

But you--you are the cobalt sea at midnight, snuggled to the shore,
You are the coffee-colored shelf supporting the books,
and somehow also, the ink imprinted on the page.

Weighs like
a tear drop sliding down pale white,
a dappled stone I found on Sanibel Island,
sunk down, deep in my pocket.

Perhaps weighs like
time:
heavy with silence
soaked in emotion,
like colored dye bleeding into white linens.

Yes, a word weighs like
time, and time weighs like stones,
I strain to hold in my palms the encumbering moment,
after you utter,
"Look, Liz, I have to be
Honest."

And you caste the word like a rock
into the lake
and watch it fall
deep, deep, deep
weighed down.

A stone that remains sunk still
in my pocket.

A lot of people will write about her, I know
she was not only mine.
We are sad we are grieving
a community bands together.

My anger is macabre inappropriate:
when her light turned out, she turned out several others.
My dearest friend:
empty gas lamp.

Trying to relight is against a tempest
and sequestered in despair,
with internal lighter fluid drained
our marrow dry as dust.

(the real truth of it all is much harder to swallow
than the news story you heard)

This time of year impermeable black takes over luxurious afternoon.
I take stolen moments with my garden book;
fat glossy nostalgic roses can only depress me further.
Lonely for the company of my friends
thrumming in chlorophyll,
the warm green network is contained in a small *** that I move
I move around the room with me,
following a shallow puddle of sunlight so precious it might be gold.

Sway seconds ecstatic bliss
The taste of lime and salt
Skin glows, criss crossed shadows
and a panic of lights.

Shifting music
Rhythm intoxication and
Shifting energy

Boldness alights
like a flock of crows gliding in at dusk,
landing on the shoulders
cast in neon-disco light

They fan feathered-dollar bills
With prospects of revelry and dancing
odes to debauchery and youth
and feigning adoration
from the swaying, neon hips.

Subtle chants and hungry eyes
We deserve this
We deserve this
We deserve--

Disappearing in her act,
She arises, in the fame of a dove
Unburdened and free
in the whitest of lights.

She thinks briefly of flying away.