I know your smell
Like warm bread,
like sweet, hot breath
It follows as I leave
It clings lazily to my clothing
and it's imbedded in my hair

I let the water fall on me
and so you swim down the drain
I can never get clean from you,
because you can never make me feel *****
Only alive

There's throbbing and aching,
in the place where you've been
I smile and remember,
as I close my eyes
You know all my sweet spots

You have never taken from me
You only give, and give, and give
and you're with me when I go

I breathe in and say,
this is what love is for

We padded the smooth vinyl chair with a pillow.
Still, the wheels rolling over cracked sidewalks
(carefully avoided as kids, so as not to break
our mother's back)
now countered hoped-for benefit or comfort.
Jarring impact traveled up the steel frame,
found quick route mapped to weakness,
directed by some skilled marksman
to reach the target with precision,
proving to be the sharper force
than all our pillow gentleness
on this, her almost final
April ride.

Dropping clean clothes from the dryer onto the bed,
recalling how she had often held them close
as if to save some sacred store of warmth,
I am softly surprised by memory today.
The warmth, like life itself,
proves Scripture true:
a mist appears a little time,
then vanishes as morning dew.

Did some indulgent, rodent grandparent,
with patience, show the way
to race across the snow and climb the pole
and make the jump and hang there upside down,
and grasp one black shell (while the feeder spins around)
and split and spit the shell to drop below
as he consumes or stores the seed and stares at me?

Or is it not a patient thing at all
but only some strong, urgent force takes hold
and makes the young one bold enough to face
in foolish confidence
whatever risk might lie ahead
in the space between
his greed and quaking fear?

And why do I, on my side the glass,
wonder whether I should be afraid?