After minutes
it's as if
I've known
you forever.

The grey in your fire escape window view
encompasses the sky and reflection
the glow you've missed for years
fallen from the sunset

a smouldering reminder of the dull days
you see ahead of you, a charcoal expanse
spread across skyscrapers and rubble
in that grey sunset reflection

oh, how the colours you miss so dearly
long to clearly see you, unobscured.

My father was
not a businessman but
a handyman, a blue
collared hope chest to
those he loved, gruff and
sturdy with stony hands and
crystal wit, sharp as the chisels
that sat in the bottom of the rough-
hemmed toolbox he fused to his gait
rarely used but sharpened, always present
a testament to the unrefined repairs
he had constructed himself through, my
father was always fixing never perfecting
he taught me how to do that how to
be imperfect yet functional, a fire
that warms not burns, a home
in winters that drag on past spring
and that I am not, but I know how to be
because he told me, he told me,
he taught me to be
good even quietly, work hard even
though it is hardly even you that
can notice what difference it makes
be strong for the weak because it is you
you are strong for that way he told me
and I know now I always must try to be
a handyman not a businessman,
a blue collared hope chest to
those I love.

Once
we
were
able
to
cre-
ate
life
with
only
words.

When you find
you feel uncomfortable,
we'll dive into
waterfalls
of colour

then we'll find a way
to console the moon,
so the current
stays awake
in a tide

when rhyme runs out
and reason's the sun
we'll out-flower
underwater
mountains

and when the volcano
erupts with a reef,
we'll know that
you're safe
in the sea.

And we
spent the day
in the bed with
white sheets,
wasting away
our golden hours,
our youth
and our future.

We fall into just the right places
now it's easy to undo these things
there's nowhere our hands
          don't know where to go
and we're asleep when
          the morning birds sing

our breath knows its way into rhythm
new is quiet and sincere
but still there are sparks
          in the spaces in the dark
and nothing can ever
          reach us here.