The hills lay raw and bare.
Unbound ******* heaving
in the gray mist of early morning.
I wish I were the hills
and this car you're driving
was a strong, slow hand
snaking around my own loosed curves.
I want to be crossed by your
barest elemental energies--
moved by passion’s own embrace.
I want to stretch and reach the sky
and stretch and touch the dirt
and feel each resonant-twinge in between.
I want to be filled with the light
and the heat of a new day--
just as the valley
after the fog is burned away.
I want to feel the vibrations of thunder
deep in the middle of me
rumbling of something resembling change
again and again and again
until the light is extinguished.
Then I will breathe deep and slow
******* heaving raw and bare
in the gray mist of a hill-night

I am still waiting
for another shoe
to fall

Because loving you
was always too
easy

And the sun still lingers
where you
smile

I wonder if I have invited the storm--
     Provoked passion--
Traces of sweat in swelling heat
      glisten
and I taunt dark clouds singing siren songs.
      The curves of my voice
thrill lonely spaces.

Flashes of light crease the sky --
      similar bursts echo
from your eyes.

Reaching around I tremble
as the heavens
      rumble loudly back.

I will meet you there
     inside the tempest.

Let it rain.

are you certain-sure
I’m not just some
figment
of your imagination--

a pleasant memory or two
grown large
over time
until the telling of it
becomes more legend
than fact?

I sometimes doubt
that I exist
at all.

maybe you’ve whispered I’m sorry to a scarlet sky,
maybe you’ve lamented prodigal sons and wandering daughters,
why shouldn’t I apologize to the wide, wonderful world
for all the things I cannot change?

I blame the weather when I get to this place,

those who are lost to us don’t need me to be more personal;

those who have mastered the little lessons and gone on
don’t mind my foolish ways.

just because I want to  pluck myself out of this life
and chisel you out of that one;
my childish heart would still play house with you.

I would follow that smile wherever it leads me.

I suppose I'll whisper another I'm sorry to the wide world
just because I can.

Time to pick up
all the shattered pieces.

Cement the colored
fragments of memory
and voice

with hope
and something new
that resembles
confidence.

A new day shines--

I will emerge
brilliant
as the sun.

I have no gift for you.
My hands are empty.

These hands
that would build a mountain
for you
rock by rock.

That would climb
that mountain
to carry you a smile
    an embrace
        a reticent bloom.

My heart is full for you.
I have always been
    yours.

I never asked you to write me love poems.

You are a philosopher
and I am a poet.
I’m fairly certain that poets shouldn’t walk together
someone ought to keep their feet on the ground.
  

We think in different languages you and I.
You speak in the stoic's tongue
and I converse in butterflies and chicory root.
Your ideas are concrete and stone
and mine are dandelion seed and cloud stuff.

You are ******* me sometimes.
The words you don't say.
The tone your voice takes
when your feelings are raw -- slices deep.

Do you know what you do to me
even when I don't say it?
Because I guess my silence
says something in the end.
I'm not sure the child in me has words for it.
Sometimes I just have nothing to say,

I want to be still.
I want to listen to the rumble of your voice,
I want to sun myself in your silence.
There aren't words for that
and so I don't say anything at all.

I am a poet. Some days.
Some days I am an old woman.
And some others I am a little girl.
But I always long to sit at your philosopher's knee
and listen to your thoughts.

My poet heart trembles as I bare myself to you.
I never asked you to write me poetry.
Your smile says everything.

On days when
I'm neither here nor there
Adrift in a sea of senseless noise
Battered by waves of unrecognizable emotion,
Floating, just floating.
On days when I have
That faraway look
When you call my name,
Just know, you may have to call again
before I come back to you

On cold nights I seamed
pieces of fabric
left over
from dresses
and girls frocks
and shirts I made you.
Until the fabric squares
covered our bed.
After the stitches
are all complete,
the coverlet
that I
pieced from our lives
will bring comfort
to your soul
and warmth
on long, cold nights.
When I can't
wrap my arms
around you,
You'll still have
my heart
to keep you warm

standing in line
at the funeral home
back where i grew up

waiting for someone
to pay respects
to the dearly departed

i heard the young
dead woman gloat
a little

pleased with the plethora
of flowers and throws
and angel figurines

and the long line of mourners

and the way
her ***** looked
in the shirt she wore

she thought
and i'm not paraphrasing much
that 'she looked pretty good
for a dead girl'

i used to think
that we left this world
and stepped into angel wings

but now i know
we cannot be
what we haven't been

I scan the skies
looking for signs
or omens

the flight of birds
might echo
the will of God

I search puddles
for future scenes
still empty of you

how do you
search
for the prophet?

runes
riddles
totems?

what augury will tell
if you might be
coming back?

I see your hands
two funny, white birds
pecking and pausing
-quirky language-
exempt from the word.
There is a cunning eloquence
-instinctive-
in that voiceless ramble
where thoughts
need no translation