It is summer.
You watch my lines.
You know they emerge from my big heart.
My turned-on nerves play a symphony.
I love it when you watch, though you straddle the doorway.
I sit at my desk, the room of my life where I hang the WANTED sign.
I have the patience of a chess player in the thousandth round.
I have a checkered flag in my back pocket if you'll start your engine.
I was born wanting - weaving the words that will dream my life whole -
poems that make a suitable bedfellow, offer immortality, and in some miracle promise to love me.
You met me this way -
dancing in circles with my pen in-hand
among books, so many books.
You watched me ignited and whirling into flame,
breathing in the smell of a love like Paradise in the moonlight
with only yes, yes, yes on my radio.
I could feel our bodies wanting to lose their loneliness,
burst like firecrackers in an explosion of color -
you the explorer and I, the map
coming with kisses.
But oh, do you smile sweetly
while you shuffle your feet
as say Live!
The song is the life
and you have but one to sing.
Listen -
can you hear it?
© Julia R. DeStefano