The mums at nursery like me.
They are reassured by dark rings beneath my eyes,
blue jeans, clean-scrubbed smile, pulled back hair.
A soul more boring and more tired-
Just knowing I exist makes them feel better.

Not today:

Today I’m wearing make-up.
And my shorts are, well, short
which I think is against the rules.
My hair shines like a barley sugar sweet
and my finger nails sparkle
like long forgotten jewels.

Today I dodge dressing-up hats, snotty noses, spilt milk,
play-dough, paint and mud-puddle splats
with practiced precision.

Today, just this once, when I give mums their children back,
I look more together and more stylish than them.

I run home, cross busy roads in record time,
wave to total strangers who want to say hello.

I get the polish off my nails,
scrub my face under the shower,
dry my hair,  pull it back,
grab yesterday’s jeans and baggy sweater.

He returns from work and asks:

Did you have a good day?

I think:

Yes. Yes **** it. Yes  I did.
Do you know-
my eyes are pretty, and I can get into shorts
I wore ten years ago?
Stop traffic - check.
Turn heads - hell yeah!
The roofer down the road nearly fell and broke his neck.
Your wife is, without a doubt,  a ******* **** thing.

So many words, like popping candy on my tongue.

I imagine his reaction.
I shut my mouth.
Danger passes.

But lies won’t come. Mouth’s gone dry.
I swallow back the truth then feel like I’m gonna gag.
Panic rising in my chest on top of bile.

Then:

My day was fine

I say. Just that.

My day was fine

And I am saved.

These present
          Kisses and touches--
The ignition of fire,
The exhalation of sigh--
          From the past smooches,
          m'goodly Lady, how different!

Walk
Down cracked sidewalks but forget where and why the going started.
Lost in the chaos of moving feet whose unity lies in their organic flow,
Perspectives shift to some new truth: experiencing its constant displacement.

Here
As bodies carry me forward, they rush to the rhythm of those who desire our desires:
I smile and laugh at voices screaming out from billboards and TVs
“What you need is need itself! Don’t look within, but to ME!”


Drift
Down the street and pause at the window’s reflection.
Behind the still face staring back lies the world’s movement:
With purpose distorted by its realization, the present bursts forth out of nothing:
Pushing
Onward from some inconceivable lack,
Towards a resolution that will not resolve.  

Here I close my eyes.
Here there is the silence between thought and its realization:
In which the meaninglessness of boundaries can be discerned.
Here I find myself fall away into everything.
Here I find only Love.

Between the words we speak,
The ambiguity asserts itself
In the lack we try to conceal
Through the flow of conversation.

Here truth always lives anew:  
Dancing from one lie to the next
Escaping the stability created
By arguments that struggle to their next conclusion.

Absorbed by these false summits,
Meaning slips away
As we look past its fleeting visage
Towards the endless climb ahead.

But these lies give understanding
About the truth they conceal:
About the falsity of our self-imprisonment
Within the differences we’ve created.

So when I tell you this love is infinite
Do not ponder the meaning of the words
But let them go in silence:
Free yourself and dance with me.