The young women show up
at this old man's door
with their legs ripe
and long and their
skirts short, so short,
and framed against
those forever legs with
the bronze, sun-kissed
amber of skin that tastes
of the sweet, clean salt of sweat
in Summer warmth.

They knock a few times in
quiet, tentative rap with
slender, thin knuckles
before moving quickly
away toward the stairs
--No, this was a bad idea,
I should have never came--
Blushing furiously as I crack
open the door with a slight ****.

I am ugly in crazed eyes and
stained shorts and no shirt
and broken air conditioner
leaves me standing in thick sweat,
but it is the old dirt-sweat
of an old dirt man,
and it tastes stale and sour
as it drips downward
from my temples.
She smiles,
shy and honest enough
for me to want her right
there where she stands,
asks if she can come in.

My place is a wreck and
she doesn't mind
as I apologize for it,
but I feel terribly for it
and wish she was gone,
the wine is almost
finished but we drink it down
even though it is warm
and the glasses sweating
within our hands.

Copulation comes easier
than conversation and
so she is silent atop my lap
except for the nothing whisper
of *** in my ear, the breathed
moan of lust in the dark rooms.
--Baby, you're beautiful,
oh, oh, you're beautiful--
and I don't much have the heart
to correct her but it
appalls me that
she could think so
knowing myself as I do,
most likely she is
only acting anyway,
so I don't think much of it
except to nod and flip her
over and she is all
legs and *** and ****
but she is self conscious
and won't let them
out of her black-lace bra
and I let her have her insecurities.
Instead, I'm with those endless legs
like golden honey and so sweet
and smooth and burning
with that inner heat of womanhood
and Lord, doesn't it
just feel good to be
young again?

If only for a second
within those eyes
and arms and
legs
legs
legs.

In Spring, it is possible
to find God with only
slight attention to detail.
There is a park tucked
between the city blocks
and the green of the grass
breaks the slate pavement
and the jawline skyscrapers
like teeth, serrated edges
up against the blue.

In Winter, He can be found as well,
but it is not the same, he is not beautiful
in his pallid forms as he is across those
verdant leaves hanging.
It is much harder to notice,
and one must look closely
at the frost alongside the branch
shining in grim reflection atop the walk.
—if one can manage the cold and
the wind and the everything frozen
without hurrying too muchalong—
I find that Hell may indeed
be a cold, cruel place.

Perhaps they are both in tandem
with one another. Winter begets
Spring and back again.
I step back from both and let
them play their tug-of-war.
Build and destroy and build again.

So I sit in Spring,
and God is there dancing,
out in the wisps of light
that brim amongst the
petals and the great
wonderful things and
I laugh, feigning hope,
knowing so quickly how it will
freeze again.

I had been in recluse for a time.
First due to sickness of the body,
then the inevitable sickness of spirit that tends to follow.
I wanted to see no one.
I was happy to be alone
in silent isolation.
For days I lay, refusing call
from friend and foe alike,
the latter mostly being the women.
They were the ones who
pulled at me the most,
but the sickness was strong
and I remained apart from them.
When it was over I found
the friends gone and
the women gone and
the loneliness dragged in me
where it been freeing before.

What is one to do?

I walked to the park
and saw a man and his dog,
running with clutched
frisbee in mouth.
I saw a young couple
walking hand in hand
in that sacred paradise of two.
I saw pigeons peck at
scattered seed and
trees looming in dark shade
over various occupants of
the shadow,
and the sun above peering,
like me,
through wide-eyed gaze
at the all of it.
I had not known how cruelly
I had missed it,
and atop that,
I had not known how cruelly
I had not been missed.

How curious that life continues.

Although I know that you
are not as sad as I am
--I hesitate to call it
sadness so simply, it seems
to be more of a perspective
than an emotion--

Although I know that
you are not as eager
to embrace this sadness,
--Though some of it does
live in you, it is what attracted
me to you so fully--

Although I know that
you are striving away
from all of the nonsense
and sadness that has
welled up between us
these past years,
--That beautiful and
maddening sadness--

I hope that there are times,
you are alone,
--Sprawled across
you bed as I remember you--
or perhaps sitting in that
chair with your laptop ahead
of you, the one you used
--Oh, how many eternities
past now!-- to call me when
I was away from you.

I hope that there are times,
regardless of where you are,
that you stop and you think
and you dwell on that
ever-numbing sadness that
I see and you see, piling up
like glaciers of ice upon
your eager heart.

I hope you embrace that
sadness like an old friend,
and can listen to some of
the sad music we once
listened to, eternities past,
and perhaps find a way to
enjoy some of
our maddening sadness
yet again.

Like the snow and the cold and the everything
piled upwards atop bare shoulders.
The absence of love buried deeper
in the chest than the hatred.
Hatred at least meant that
there was something to feel.

Leaning against the steps,
an early morning in January
as the snow and the cold
and the everything piled upwards,
I watched as you looked through me
and walked right on by.

She had a boyfriend
back in Miami,
she said,
and she would love
to have me,
she said,
but she just
couldn't do that,
she said,
she loved him and
she would just feel
awfully terrible about
it if she did,
she said.

I told her if she didn't
want to then it seemed
logical that she shouldn't.

Oh, but darling how
I would love to,
she said,
and I'm so drunk
it would be easy,
she said,
but I love him
I promise I do,
she said.

We were in bed
and she lay atop me
saying these things
and the devils the
both of us fought had us
up against the ropes.

I ****** her then,
and once more in the morning
before I dropped her off
at the airport to fly home
to that wonderful and
terribly ignorant boyfriend,
the one she loved so much,
quite obviously a better
man than me.

And that is what
it was, wasn’t it?
Your heart for a year
of bad times.
you got the short end
of the stick on
that one it seems,
kiddo.
I didn’t mean it.
I walked in thinking
it would be a pretty
even trade;
your soul for mine.
I’m sorry it didn’t
work out so smoothly
for either of us.