dried tears may as well
be painted gold on a mourning face.
the acknowledgement of so many breaks.

the only way forward now is through.
mending made evident
in the tracks of a beautiful glue.

At a beach on a coast
walking-distance
from my present home,
the wind cast rivulets
into the grains of sand.

In the shallow shadows,
I can see the gray
leading into yellow
Bleeding into its fellow.
Impossible to separate (or, at least, misleading).

So their togethered taupeness
will be sampled and classified
in a blue munsell book
with a breaking cover
I should've returned ages ago.

It's useful like this.
But did you know
a few pages away
you could find
the blue-green stain of my veins?

Why do I know this?
There are only so many ways,
after all, to fill the time
in the back of a truck in Georgia.
(Even fewer if you keep your seatbelt on.)

So chart my freckles next, darling.
Find a new slot and show me
how my skin
shares the same page as your own.
Just on a different row.

Lovebirds gravitate to the same perch
beneath the well-feathered branches
of old cypresses (cypressi?)
that too many years ago
were uprooted and planted
on this side of the hill.

Up the now-mirrored steps
two bodies lean
from a spot you'd swear
is halfway between
the waters you wander through
and the oceans you wonder for.

Measured to the centimeter,
a ruler still won't tell you
the toll these trips take
on the limbs sprouting up from the sand
grounding down to the land
reaching out only to end in another empty hand.

But still the lovebirds pause here
in the man-made wonder
that may as well be a wayside inn
for all the shelter it gives
to those on the journey
with only one end.

the scalloped skirts
of the biloba ballerinas
are furling while green
still paints the stems
of the stubborn soloists.

the maidenhair corps de ballet
flies from the wings
tutus golden to match the winter light.
curtains open on the new season.
the sidewalk audience stands

in ovation
and continues home.

Did you hear what I said?
So often/not yet.
But you responded all the same.
It seemed a better method
than to ignore and regret it.
What could've been if I'd known your name?
There's a chance you'll see me
another day. And we'll be
engaged in the new-old game
of predicting/amending.
We're better off listening.
But the thought of it's really quite lame.

tides pull greens through blues
perpetual sunsetting
at the golden gate

A rose-window seldom resembles a rose
And we're taught that's okay.
An allusion will suffice
Where an illusion fails

And either is better than the third near-homophone.
The Carmen Sandiego of it all.

For if we cannot have the real thing
It's more fitting to sketch the bones from memory
Than to chase the world round
And only find its thorns.

Sitting in the solitude of your chance-made garden,
you watch the wind
dancing the leaves
of the tallest trees.

In this moment,
the last thing you want
is for the streams to descend the lengthy limbs,
sliding ever closer
to your carefully set self.

But you and he
and them and the air
can never stay still
for long.