I watch men I do not know.
How they smile,
twitch,
scratch-
how the ***** steel bristles
cut through their cheeks and chins;
their tatoos
dull blue and grey
on sweat washed arms.
How they rub their hands,
push back their hair,
adjust their collars,
breath,
laugh,
belch.
I am looking for someone
I never knew.
I am looking for my father.
If he were near, I could not
let him pass by unseen, unfelt.

Meeting him,
I do not know what I would say.
hello
or
do you know me?
Maybe I would say nothing.
Maybe I would just sit and stare,
like a soldier,
seeing his own arm
****** and torn in the road,
wondering why the fingers don't move
when he tries to make a fist.

The aging blind man at the florist's
Recalls his vision,
The statue of his former youth.

Alas when sight was fragrant.

Here, the sensation of scent
Is a meadow of heartache
When days were alive as fresh bouquets,
Nostalgic perfumes upon her grave.

Alas when love was fragrant...

He carries her lilies out the door,
Old and blind,
A man holding on to all memories
Of bright before’s.

Alas when life was fragrant…

She’s built of divinity.
Mother Earth birthed her,
sculpted her figure.
She’s the generations past;
She’s the collective future.
Her voice carries over the crests of waves,
harmonizing with the wind,
uniting the stars.
When she cries,
her tears rain from the heavens,
eroding sharp cliffs
and rough quarries
She created nations from dirt,
and power from her hands.
She is Woman.

pony-tailed playmate
head tucked in her shirt
gazing steadily down
at her toes in the dirt

chaos tiptoes around her
naive oblivion
journeys in far away lands
just west of the meridian

watercolor fairy tales
bleeding outside the lines
unaware of the danger
unaware of the signs

let me sit with you, darling
in the dampened flower beds
and paint a new world
for us in our heads

Autumn questions
with no immediate answers

gradually denuding
to reveal skeletal branches
penning their script against pale skies,
writing of the sharp tongued winter
lying ahead

Garden gate yawning open, you step out into a world that hasn't quite awoken
The sleepy light of dawn to warm you, the morning dew cool on bare feet
I dream of walking in the Earth's gentle arms
Before she stretches off her sleep
In this quiet sort of patience, the world seems so at peace

a glimpse of
what might have been:
the candle
and the blow

pacing the floor
mind filled with nighthawks
stomach with bitter pills

snow on the window sill
--the long winter
of our love

it comes out of the blue
like dead reckoning

thoughts of us
unfinished

a hand withdrawn
the final wager on goodbye