Sept. 10, 1987

Inside old ladies on bicycles
I see ghosts of young girls,
pigtails flying from beneath their greying hair
eyes sparkling behind thick glasses.

I search in me, for ghosts of hopscotch
and double-dutch, two-***** and tag.
I can feel them shimmer,
holograms of my youth.

I search, too, for the ghost
of the old lady I will become.
I sense her, frail but determined,
fading, but not dead before she dies.

If little girls live inside old ladies,
and age hides just beneath young faces,
there is no such thing as time.

Dec. 7, 1987

With what silken threads
we weave the web
to bind our loves.
How tenderly they’re trapped;
with kind caresses,
we kiss them into oblivion.
And when unconscious,
how sweetly do we ****
the life from them!

Do they struggle in the
silken web, and know
that they are being caught?
Or do they look into
our fixed eyes, and
lose themselves in depths
of need and pity there?

Struggling to free you,
I tear the web to pieces.
Cast upon the ground,
I watch you flutter off,
and wait, self-bound, until
I become the prey
of some unkinder
devourer.
             *   *    

Apr 2, 1987

I wonder how they met,
What magic thread drew them together
In ever-tightening stitches
Till their fabrics began to mesh.

I wonder how they knew
This was the One inside whose head –
And heart – they’d find themselves.

Peculiar pulsing rhythms
Unheard by strangers’ ears,
Or need that flows from deep recess
Of silent hearts?

Dancing in the stillness of the night
To music ringing in my soul;
As yet unheard, my secret name
Calls out to other’s honest places:
Claim me, find me, take me home.