**** frost's barbwire grip on branches
glitters in the scathing glare,
I wondered how I could see you through the blue sky
but there you are
breathing like a dragon
heaving heat into my heart
from the centre of your sun;
We, close enough to burn (again).

I lean in to kiss your pulsing lip
Only, you turn away... cold,
indifferent.
Hard to tell
in negative degrees,
why you came here with me,
And as snow begins to fall (again),
dusting hair
caught as flecks on eyelashes,
eyes blue, sparking
wild afire,
You disappear in white:

It's always easy to deny
a season's change
when you linger in the past...

Come summer,
I may remember the taste
of sweat upon your skin,
your smell, coyly
folds in clefts of skin
hung in hair
tasted on lips
I alone once permitted to kiss.

__________________­____________________



B­y Data © Sept. 2024

Hollow days and painful nights
In the itching sweat of illness.
Photos of another life
In sunlit fields of memory
Are glued to scrapbook pages
And the book locked in the cupboard.
Broken teacup on the floor
Dropped or thrown - who knows.
The Ferris Wheel no longer turns
And the Hurdy Gurdy has gone silent.
Effort does not pay the rent
That ratchets ever upward.
Blood and tears are valueless
And the race is almost over.
         ljm

“Why seek the Living One among the dead?“
asked angels to a few who‘d watched the Lord
be crucified—His blood and life outpoured,
“He is not here! He‘s risen as He said!“
In days before these women wept in grief
as Jesus‘ lifeless body, wrapped in shroud,
lay buried, guarded, sealed from Paschal crowd,
but by God‘s plan entombment would be brief!
His slaying served full payment for the debt
incurred against Himself by mankind‘s sin.
His raising proved His sacrifice the win
to satisfy God‘s wrath, my debts forget!
Because Christ Jesus died but ever lives,
the sin of all who trust Him God forgives!

My name is Taylor and I have a tooth that tucks behind one of my front teeth.

I say this as my first sentence because when I look at myself in the mirror and smile, that is the first thing I notice.

But a compliment I've heard more times than once, "You have a beautiful smile."

I  wonder how many things in life are like that...

Qualities or characteristics that people agonize over are the very things that others appreciate and admire.