Little babe,
Small and curious,
The world stares back at you.
Fresh and new,
You are the beginning of something beautiful.

You have years:
You will love,
Taste despair and eventually find it sweet.
There will be things that delight you today,
Only to bore you tomorrow.
But you will press on.

You will find new levels of beauty in life:
You will wonder why and find your answers,
You will discover why the sun rises,
why men die.
You will come to know good,
And happiness,
And sadness.
You will taste feel run fight dream
Find yourself wasting hours... years,
But you will be alive,
And you will press on.

The clouds shifting over me,
Carried as ships on a chilling breeze,
And holding a blinding anticipation
Over my taut brow,
Then bathing me in holy light,
My jacket shifting from shoulder to chair,
Again and again

There is new excitement in each change:
The pleasure of lambent rays,
Then the rush, like cool sheets,
And the tight envelopment of soft cotton.
Each time with new awareness

Suddenly I have muscles, stretching fibers,
Then a cheek, brushed with stubble,
And a chest, filling with air.
Until, again, I have no body at all,
Only the words in my head.

Squeeze me like a piece of fruit,
Sliced for breakfast,
Ruby red with smooth skin.
Plucked fresh like an apple,
Peal me ripe, down to the core.
My hands wrapt round your navel,
Rubbed raw we ferment.

He swallowed the truth,
But never spoke the lie/
Never closed the door;
In the silence of his mind,
He drew lines in the sand.

But the line in the sand
Was washed away in the storm;
And he walked into the desert,
Where the truth was known.

I'll throw my heart into the sea,
Into where I cannot see.
Not knowing whether it will sink,
Beyond the depths of abyss,
Or float the currents
As a castaway.
Perhaps it will wash up on a beach,
Or be caught
And gutted.

No heart understands the sea,
But every heart must brave it.

My mind should be on better things.
Folding laundry, feeling as if
I were still watching
clothes
spin.

That dryer can hold anything,
memories, paranoia,
hope,
but it can never dry my clothes;

they're still wet.

I want to put them on,
feel their warmth.

Things aren’t like they used to be.
My clothes are damp,
While I fold them
I’m left to my memories.

A smooth breeze brushes my face
And stiffens my hands.
Light burns the underside of bridges,
While a lost train cries out,
Screeching in lonely desperation.

Joggers grate a sandy sidewalk
And clouds wait low in the distance;
Their coral hues almost blending
     with the thick horizon.
Planes crawl, carried in the glacier of the sky.
All frozen into the portrait of today.