The words have been at the tip of my tongue
For as long as I can remember.
I saw the first sound in autumnal eyes
In the first crisp days of December.
I was a fool to search for forever
Without first stopping to consider
maybe love is meant to last a moment,
Not a day, or week, or a winter.
Nor must it be plagued by incessant need
Nor be sealed by a kiss or a ring
Nor be the sweetness the poets promised
Nor give reason for the birds to sing.

I remember
Smoking a joint
On an abandoned road
At the end of August
Reading the map wrong
And getting lost with you.
The car never worked right
After taking the wrong road.
“I thought this was a freeway.”

I remember
Leaning back
For my first
Divine and mystical tour
And passing you the wand
That would take you there.

I remember
Shaking inside
When you first put
Your hand on my leg
Because it told me
Something was going on.

I remember reaching our destination
And never stopping.

I remember
The first time you used your key
To come home to me.

I remember
Conspiring
And perspiring
On summer evenings.

I remember
Dancing with you
At one in the morning
At a run-down club
And wondering in awe
Our natural rhythm
That was better than the music
And how glad I was
That you were mine.

I remember
The first time
I looked in your
Denim eyes
And my mind quietly whispered
“That’s my best friend.”

I  remember
When I was leaving
With tears in my eyes
Was the first time
You told me you loved me.

And I wonder if I was the only one there.

Walks by when it is raining
And I don’t say a word to them.
And a ghost left his laundry
Where it shouldn’t be again.
The world wants to be my lover
When I only wanted a friend.
And everybody wants to be real
But they can only manage to pretend.

When they ask me why I loved you,
I tell them I do not know.
How could I possibly tell them
Through word or thought or prose
The way your thumb grazed
The stitches of a leather steering wheel
The way it would graze over my breast
When we woke on foggy Saturday mornings.

What words would give merit
To the way I felt
When our eyes locked across a room.
Full of people we know very well
And people I don’t know at all.

It was in the moments
Your eyes opened for the first time each day
To a new beginning
And old problems.

It was the way you ran
Your hand through your hair
When you were angry
That I was angry
That you were angry.

It was the way you’d come
Strutting up the walk way
In the evening
Where I could barely see the silhouette
Of the man who would break my heart
A thousand times.

It was the way you put your shoes on
When you left me.
It was the way you buttoned your shirt
Before she would button it down.

I can’t tell them why I loved you.
They would never understand.

The air in the room is so palpable
I can sink my teeth in it
And roll it over my tongue
Like a cherry candy
Looking at the real world
Through yellow cellophane
That gives it just enough
of an unreal gloss to make me wonder.
And I realize I’m only older
When I’m not falling in love
Or having my heart broken
Because it feels the same after
5
10
20
23 years
And I wonder if I found the key
To eternal youth if not life
And if it’s any different
Then putting together a puzzle
And breaking it apart
Time after time for eternity.
I’ll live forever if I stay with you.
I feel each second on the spectrum
Of a wavelength
I feel us dip apart and pull right back
Closer and closer
As we feel each others’ frequency
Grow higher in pitch
My blood is turning to static
As we brush shoulders on the electron cloud
Only together in an instant, snapshot
Forever apart in the fluidity of time.
And I wonder if you’re making me better
Or if I found a new way to get sick.
You taste like lavender and ashes
And borrowed time
Subtle implications
And of the place I was yesteryear
And the places you’ll be when I’m gone.
And you’re fragrant with the scent
Of your old and future lovers.
And when your calloused finger
Taps my hip bone
Like the strum of an old bass
It is perfectly in tune
With the hum of my throat
And it’s vibration
Sad and sweet
and the most pleasant complication
I've ever encountered.

Though all babies are welcomed
As cherubs and innocent things
All are born of circumstance
Starving soldiers or spoiled kings.
Some children sip from silver spoons
And others taste spoons of lead.
Some mothers pinch round, chubby cheeks
Others cannot keep them fed.
I know my child’s only fault
Is that he was born to me.
Destined never to witness Rome,
Due to my own poverty.
I tell my son what mothers do,
That he can do all he dreams,
But late at night, I bury tears
For someone told that to me.
I look into his eyes like mine,
And wish I’d set my lover free
So he had found a finer half
And loved someone more than me.
I too was born from circumstance,
I too was careful to dream
But still I dream for my son,
Most of all, that he is more than me.

On the drive to my mother's house
I noticed the streets were alive.
The rural dead was lit up
with sedans and vans on a drive
I thought it strange on this road
when usually, I saw not a soul.
Many mothers just like mine,
must stay in the rural gold.
And I thought myself not quite wrong,
But not quite right, when I saw the cause
They turned to the cemetery on the left
While I myself drove on.  
Many years later, I used my signal,
to tell those behind me of my woe
as I made a left on mother's day
with no where else to go.
I felt the pity of the drivers,
as they drove on past me.
I looked in the rearview one last time,
Full of wisdom, but full of envy.