He told me once he would name our daughter after the places we had been or flowers he picked for me.

He said he would name her Carolina, not Caroline, and he would remember those humid summer nights we spent watching the sunset.

He said he'd name her Daisy, because he knew my favorite was flowers and he would buy her anything she desired to make her as happy as me.

He told me this once, a long time ago, back when we were young and before we really thought about life. Back before I knew what I wanted and *** to react when he said he wanted kids.

I told him I hoped our son has his green eyes and his sandy blonde, but turning darker each year, hair.

I told him I hoped our son had his spark and his sarcastic smile so I could always remember he had the good pieces of his father, the parts I laughed about.

I told him that before things changed, before we both spun out of control and closer to the flames.

Now we sit on opposite sides of the country and we talk to different people about kids and love. And we wonder, where things could have been if we hadn't become so lost in ourselves  for once.

this poem
is not about you

even though
your spirit is in every word
your voice sounds strong
in the halls of my mind
telling me things
I am now sure
I want to know

this poem is
about me

trying to understand
you

I wrote a poem on the mist
And a woman asked me what I meant by it.
I had thought till then only of the beauty of the mist,
             how pearl and gray of it mix and reel,
And change the drab shanties with lighted lamps at evening
             into points of mystery quivering with color.

  I answered:
The whole world was mist once long ago and some day
             it will all go back to mist,
Our skulls and lungs are more water than bone and tissue
And all poets love dust and mist because all the last answers
Go running back to dust and mist.

The girl that I like is young, quite petite, I might add
Bluish-greenish turquoise eyes, like the forest and the sea combined
Her voice, a sweet, gentle overtone; the ocean, calm waves that reach ashore
The breeze, blows the forest trees; a rustle, soothing to the human ears
Her skin that luminesces; the white sands of the Riviera Maya
Here and there, little sprinkles of darker sand on her pretty face
Her natural dark, red hair, as fiery as the midday sun,
And her lips a vibrant red, that melt you in the summer days,
So warm and cozy as the winter rays.