Ariana

Ariana 1d

I need your warm fog-breath
on my skin
akin to the way
trees need morning dew to kiss them
in all the right places.

Ariana 3d

I used to linger in bed with you,
past my alarm,
pretending to be asleep as the
sunrise tip-toed in.
I would be late to work again
and you would hold me as if
I might slip from your arms
and float off into the sun.

Now you lay with your back to me most nights.
You kiss my lips politely, whisper
I love you with yours; but
when the morning comes
you don’t hold me
and I don’t pretend to sleep anymore.

Today,
touch starved and wide awake,
I pulled you in;
You rolled back over,
and I got up before my alarm.

June 13, 2024

Ariana 3d

Measuring In Blossoms

In Her 10th year she took the form of
a large leafed aven.
A rare eye’s-smile,
bright yellow as sunshine.
Hair sprouting wild the way hand-gathered
bouquets should.
Exploding from bud to flower—

Still green with too-long legs raising her
Up,
Up,
Higher up by the moment;
Sun-kissed and well-fed on love.

To my daughter as we ready to enter her 12th year.

Ariana 3d

Shoreline

Loving you
sounds like undulating waves
lapping the muddy banks
of Lake Ontario.

It looks like embers
glowing so deeply red their
essence is almost lost to the warm
dark of the night where we sit
draped in damp sweaters,
full of wood smoke,
finding comfort in each other
like long lost friends
who waited centuries to be
reborn in close proximity,
together again.

Forget cheap Valentines,
we’ll carve our love letters in
the rocky sands of Cape May;
And long after
the tide washes them away,
I promise to be your best friend,
Your sweater,
and your light
if you promise to kiss me
softly under bleeding sunsets
for the rest of my life,
so that I may never forget
what loving you tastes like.

Ariana 4d

Untitled

Time’s a thief
—though can you blame her?
I want to be in a room
bathed in shades of you, too.
So long as your laugh echoes,
still in the corners of my mind,
your birthday balloon
will remain; limply dangling from
your favorite chair in the family room,
nylon ribbons frayed and loose
Because time is unkind.

It serves to remind that
you should be here;
And I,
Bathed in shades of you.

Ariana 5d

March 2018

I asked him why he loved me;
He whispered
"Because I do."
And it wasn't really
the answer
that I was looking for.