She's all class
and manners.
The way you imagine
your grandmother was
when she was a twenty-something
Army wife while your grandfather
was eating mud for Christmas dinner
in a trench outside of Berlin.
All smiles and pearly white teeth
and slow dances for one.

All my life
I sought
an angel.
And he appeared
in order to say:
"I am no angel !"

Cooped up in a mini van
Feeling the tips of your
Fingers
Drumming on the back
Of my neck

Your thick, long hair
Your sun-streaked lion's mane
Falling on my cheeks.

Your drowning pool eyes
And their shattering shade
Of blue
Erasing my good sense.

Your Cupid's bow lips,
Soft and pliable
(I know because I've studied them every time they've formed my name),
Tasting my mouth and my yearning skin.

Your hands.
Doing what they do.

And your body
Against mine.

Oh.

If only.

I hold my cards
close to my chest
on this night that is
oh so close.

No fan
to blow
air into my face,
not that it would
matter anyway.

The air
would just
remind me
that it is hot
this summer night.

I am drinking beers
while the fruit flies
are sharing with me.
No sense
in picking them
out of the cup..
more will arrive.

The woman
who lives upstairs,
how can she ride her bike,
on such a summer night.

I hear her,
it's the sound
of rowing,
a creak-creak-creak.

88 Willow,
the building with eight dwellings.

Through the open window
I hear a dog barking,
maybe two, three blocks away.

This building that I live in,
where the walls
are so thin
you know that
they have ears.
Have ears to hear.

Creak-creak-creak..
the woman is rowing,
her rowing machine rows
out into a great big sea
of imagination,
where there
is every kind
of sea creature
that you can conjure  
up in your mind.

And her
boyfriend, a fine
painter and sculpture.
He wants to do the
cover of my next book..

And I think, like that's ever going to happen.

My good friend
was over tonight,
he told me a story about
how he proposed
to his 'maritime' woman.

She cried and she cried
after she saw the ring,
not because it was so small,
but because she was
beside herself
in joyful delight.

I envy what it is they have,
but what they have
requires work, hard work.
They have one tried and true
partnership.

We talked about
reaching out to extended family,
as well as brothers and sisters in blood.

Me, of my own,
my father is turning eighty.
Eight decades and I know him not.
He fought
in the Korean War
and I've yet to ask him
about it.
Not once in my life time
has he even smelled
the wartime memories
that I am sure waft up
on occasion.

Now back to 88 Willow.

There is a drunkard
living in a basement apartment.
His legs are going
from wet brain.

He only calls me when
he is drunk.

He has two drinks and
he starts fumbling worse
than a line backer
intercepting
a foreword lateral pass.

I don't want to move,
though I know I have to,
to keep on keeping on,
I've got to move,
I have to move.


© 2013

My sweater is torn.
And its January. She can sew.
She taught herself on a Sunday afternoon last July.

My sleeve caught on the door handle as I left.
It was trying to stop me,
Hold me back, teach me a lesson.

The handle took my button.
I didn’t care. I could go back and get it.
But not today. I’ll fix it.

Stars, toggles, squares,
Pink, blue, white, navy.
I find a grey circle.

The thread finds its way
Through the four chambers
Of the button.

Atrium to ventricle.
Ventricle to atrium.
I double knot it.

She can sew.
I didn’t care.
And now I wear my button on my sleeve.

You fade...
Like a bruise.

Like the ones your mouth left on my neck and shoulders with its lustful pressure.
Your teeth, which brought moments of bright pain/pleasure,
Are now bared in an artificial, animal smile.

Your lips, which parted to ******* skin like it was salvation,
Barely part now to speak to me.
You whispered my name like a prayer.
You screamed it like a curse.
You sighed it in contentment,
And now you won't even speak it in passing.

Your hands, which half-playfully pulled my hair...
Now won't pause to brush it from my face.

All these parts of you,
None more telling than your eyes.
Those new windows, which once let me pry...
Now have blinds drawn tight behind them,
Leaving only a pretty, shiny reflection-
A passing, glancing imitation-
Of the passion they once held
When they beheld
Me.

No color left to them but the muddy colors of
Boredom,
And possibly mistrust.

You fade...
Like a bruise.
Like the one you left on my mind with your brilliant conversation
And beautiful, rusty prose.
Like the many you left on my tongue...
Which now can speak nothing but trite and meaningless words,
Which now can barely remember the shapes
Of all the shimmering, liquid phrases it spoke to you
That seemed so important at the time.

You fade...
Like a bruise.
Once lover and friend,
Now barely one
And never the other again.

Tonight, I walk

I make my way up vista ridge
The sinuous road that winds its way
Through the hills behind my home
I pass the many old homes built into the ridge
Overlooking the city

I see through a window an old man in his kitchen
His grandchildren flutter around him like fireflies
The delicate dance of youth
Their glow illuminates his face with laughter
And joy
I would like to be him one day
When enough years have passed
As time begins to steal the light from my face
Only to have it replenished by the joy of family
And new life
And still endless possibilities
Even as my hair turns to silver

The streetlamps flicker on with the dusk
Casting a path down the lane
Illuminating autumn leaves
As they fall among the houses and parked cars

The lights of the city glimmer below
The entire world seems to crackle and spark
That which is not flame is tinder
Ablaze with life

I make my way down the lane
On feet that seem less content to touch earth
With each step
As I remember the incredible lightness
Of living