Photograph an evening sunset
of a lake, wide and long,

one thousand times more
blue than the morning star,

and vulnerable, like a late
October Rose of Sharon

blossom, minutes before
fall’s first killing frost;

hold the picture close, as
it is your life, our lives.

I'm sitting outside
waiting for the preschool walk
to pass. Pool swim soon.

She walks like a ballet dancer
headed for a fight.
Hands in pockets,
elbows akimbo,
the whole a pair of isosceles triangles
balanced above the rapid
heel/toe heel/toe
rocking grace of her strides.

She knows--
where she goes, who she is
what she wants.

Pearl earrings.  They came
in a red box with gold lettering
I unwrapped in the
restaurant parking lot
on a humid evening before
my college graduation
where we milled around,
waiting for our table.

My father's gift.

One year later, in the same place,
I put them on;
my father walked me down the aisle
to marry a good man.
Wrapped in a princess dress.
Towing a six-foot train.

My mother's dream.

They stayed in my jewelry box
for one decade plus five.
Years while I played
hide and seek with depressions
and wondered who that person
in the mirror was.

My straight persona.

When  I think of that now
I remember--
pearls are made of pain.
The substance the oyster makes
to coat the grit, or
whatever makes its way
into the shell.

The process transforming
the ugly, raw, pain
into the lustre of something
priceless.

There always was a face
under this mask--
living skin, stifled
under the thick, white layers
immobilized by:

fear

the expectations/exhortations/excoriations

Logic found at the bottom of
empty wine bottles,
the dregs and sludge of sediment.

Hairline cracks, deepening,
flaking, peeling,
tiny pieces, larger chunks,
the slow work of years
until

my fingers ripping, prying, tearing
a sudden rending of it all.

I raise my naked face to the sun,
feel the wind on my cheek.
Take one, long, full breath.

Hello.  It's good to be.

I ride in the mellow light
at the end of the day,
that flows
to mingle with the
gathering shadows.

And, I wonder, as I pedal:
if the possibilities of morning
have turned to certainties,
then can we embrace
the forgiveness, the healing
of day's end when
we all are enveloped
in the rich, rich light
that lingers, gently,
on the land
and in the faces
that pass me by?

Your hair is a curtain
and I see your eyes
glimmer behind the strands--
the strands I gather up
and fling around us

so that now it is a tent
enclosing two sets of eyes
that look and see and gaze

enclosing two mouths that
kiss, explore, connect.

enclosing two pairs of hands
that careers, cajole, create.

What is it about air
moving across muscles, tendons, tongues--
a simple miracle--
that fans the flames
I find in your eyes?