In the morning
We have a cup of coffee
Watch the sun come up or
Drape a blanket over our
Bodies that don’t move so well,
Not so well as they used to,
Not so well as they did when
We were all fire and heart.

Because now the kids are grown and
Time has changed yet again,
Into a stillness full like a constant
Roast and potatoes in the winter
Heating the house
Drifting to us as we arrive
Saying “sit, stay for a spell, eat and be loved.”

That day isn’t tomorrow
Or the next
But a lighted window on a dark night.
I’m wandering toward it
Holding her hand.
Sometimes I pull, sometimes she does.

The world keeps turning
One stroke and the axis roars
God, it spins fast enough to break
All the fragile things we made
A thousand times over

But I’ve got a secret:
I’ve got someone
That makes it so
The world doesn’t spin so fast.

And someday,
When love is forever,
In the morning
We have a cup of coffee
Watch the sun come up.

Shirtless and floating in the hotel pool,
staring at the hotel ceiling.
I'm waiting.

A permanent pace and temperature hold here.
The desk clerk tip-toes into the room on occasion,
up to the ladder, and whispers, as if she might wake me,
"Are you sure you still don't need anything?"

It's 11 p.m. The pool closed at 10.

I raise a hand and she tip-toes back to the desk.

I'm waiting. I'm floating on my back. The ceiling
is ornate, beautiful. Flourishes interlock and repeat.

I haven't said a word in three days. The first day
was unintentional and only realized as I crawled into
bed. The second day came easy, felt meditative. Now
my silence is another obligation.

I used to feel sorry for myself. On a different occasion,
I lived with such reckless intensity.

Now, I'm trying to raise my credit score.

I want to trace the ceiling. I'm shirtless, floating, waiting.
I'm on my back.

I imagine this is what god must feel like,
this removed, this gone, a spectator, impotent
and waiting.

I bring my shoulder blades in and sink. I'm underwater.
I'm underwater and the ceiling distorts. I'm underwater
and the desk clerk is nowhere to be found. I'm underwater,
shirtless, staring, waiting.

this is all a diary—-

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop writing to you.

Baby let's go
                           tipsy-toed
               Skinny dipping in
         disco lights.
    Drunken mouth in
                              worship,
            you call my body             Jerusalem
till I'm        
spluttering up
                             pool water.


    The ceiling spins
                                 a salsa,
the fridge exhales something
                               obscene when it opens
and the furniture
                         blushes
          I'm jealous of the
                                   love story
                    in my home.


We roll around in
                       bolognese
     I slurp the      happy
            out of
                     your mouth.
                                     Saucy smirks.
Oh keeper of my heart,
                             I chain myself to
your smile and
                              swallow the
                                                 key.