His *****-white sneakers tied in double knots
three strides down the sidewalk and he knows they are too small
He didn’t know that your feet could get fatter too but
oh that’s right
Emily’s feet had grown with each pregnancy
People tell him that’s a lot of kids
Four - no ****
He was on the track team in high school but he’s the wrong size now
Right size?
It’s women on billboards
oiled like seals
lips puckered to meet the side of a ***** bottle
in this city and every city in America
Emily had managed to stay fit and what a miracle that was
She is one of those women
who looks good - healthy
in her element even
with a runny-nosed child on her hip
and three hours of sleep
and no makeup
and snot smeared on the shoulder of her black tshirt
Flower of a woman
People ask him how does she do it?
By his male friends he’s told how lucky he is
but that wasn’t the word he was thinking of

He is working up a sweat now
He feels each foot land on the pavement with his whole body
He watches small dogs lift their legs, demurely
They relieve themselves on statues on the Comm Ave Mall
He feels like the figment of someone else’s imagination
He sees trees he could identify when he was a botany major
before he traded his VW for a minivan
Sweetgum, green ash, maple, linden, zelkova, Japanese pagoda
that one’s an elm
even his six-year-old knows what an elm is
New synapses formed
Genus and species replaced by numbers, meaningless
They only mean something if his client is getting paid
One day a paycheck, a bottle of champagne
Another
stress, Netflix for entertainment
He’s left his iphone on the kitchen counter
No missed calls or new text messages
No music on this run
Unfiltered thoughts where Led Zeppelin should be
He remembers next week is Lulu’s birthday
Peaches and cream little girl
who is never seen without bruises on her knobby bird’s legs
Kat, older, malleable, chose ballet
Lulu insists on football
She wants to get ***** and tackle boys
The first day of practice he was mildly horrified
when he realized she is the only female in the league
He loves watching the other teams’ faces when they learn they just played a girl
because it is impossible to tell under all the padding
until Lulu pulls off her helmet at the end of the game
slow motion
as she walks off the field
shaking out honey-colored hair
throwing a wink at her rivals
Players use last names only by some unspoken rule
But not her
she is still his Lulu
her closet filled with princess dresses and football jerseys

some days, when the pain is bigger than before, when it manifests itself into a coyote hunting down the prancing memories of the good days, chasing the sunset,
it's these days I ask myself if it was truly worth it?
is it better to have loved & lost; to have lived and died, than to be a spec of dust on the wind, washing the sky in colours undetectable.
we painted the clouds in rosy hues,
& loving you was like painting a canvas in every shade of red from every berry in every forest.
but when the paint dried & oxidized, & roses looked muddy like they had been stepped on out in the rain,
it was days like that I felt it was not worth it.
being shackled to the ground, sprouting from the soil and instant destruction,
this love was so young, so pure, so new and senseless,
yet agony awakened as your spirit drifted away from these leaves & thorns,
& I am just a small rosebud begging to blossom but you keep picking petals, playing a game of "I love her, I love her not"
how does this flower bloom if every day she fades back into the ground, trampled by the crash of timber from the shaky earthquake of your voice.
cowering in the corners from the thunder your voice emits, from the high heavens.
so holy you seem with your voice so high, so above and beyond the trees my petals could never reach.
& yet so terribly close you feel, how your voice carries on the wind, howling from dawn to dusk.
so I understand now why it hurts so much.
how you were once all of nature, but the forest burnt to the ground, ashes to ashes,
we, the remains of nature, scattered across the earth.
you're love was so short, a glimpse of light, a lunar eclipse,
& the forgetting is so long, a year of April showers, a mourning period where flowers don't grow, flash floods in my eyes & around every corner.
forgetting is all to difficult, but I'll take it.
I'll take the rain any day, to have felt your light if only for a fraction of a moment;
if only to have it vanish like the wind.

a cool morning is rare here
you wake up startled by humid air
lips sweaty
salty like california oceans
so far from home

She tries and she tries
But she knew
Even if she tries and tries
More
He will be him
Which is no different
The man she loves solely
Will not change
Not for her
Not for the moon and the sun
Not for the rain
Not for her pain
But if
What if
He loved her as she
Not for who she's trying for either of them to be

It's amazing how much you can miss a stranger.
It's amazing how much you wish you could hear their words.
Longing?

Maybe that isn't the right word.

You can admire a face
A perfect slender nose
Soft eyes that have seen more than you could ever imagine
Windows showing deep sadness-
A sweetness
She reflects your soul.

You might not know where they come from
Or where they are now
Or even their full name
But you know you enjoy their presence in your life, no matter how brief
Their words
Their stories
Their poems

It makes you feel full.
You can tell that she's wonderful,
elegant,
real,
infinitely deep.

And you're left,

longing...

between midnight and 3am.


But then again, maybe that's not the right word.