Mean? No, you misunderstand me-
the lady is not cruel.

She's just a goodly heart
surrounded by a moat of alligators.

You're an hour ahead of me,
so when I think good morning now,
did you feel it a while ago?

Did it settle in your pulse?
A warm sudden second?
Anything?

My heart is dead with missing you.
This is not a poem-
but calling it so
is the polish that makes pain
speakable.

I don't move,
I orbit.

I hopscotch the squares where love can be.
Where it has already been.
So,

I don't move [forward],
I orbit [to where I may belong]

I am homesick for everyone
I've ever met.

Most major decisions are based
on the statistic probability of a kiss,
because to be loved
is to be corporeal.

My heart doesn't guide me,
theirs do.

I follow my bloodlines
and shake the tree
for fruit.

This is how it goes:
With each breath I draw,
one for me
one for you.

All she wanted her horoscope to give her
was a sock-foot cozy kind of relationship.
One that wore SPF 30 and smelled of sugar candy.
That would have been just fine.

Instead she got a surprise pancakes kind of beast.
Bear hugs, dog kisses, *******,
sumptuous battles, book aisles, 2am feast
and little silver spoon in the middle night.  

We never made it to the papers,
so we built a patch-quilt nest.
The quirky loving is alright,
you dress me in my Sunday best.

There are certain tones that pierce us-
the tremulous "I..." which precedes the first
halting "...love you."
The static of a stilled phone line
a lace tying two ends of the country
that carried happy birthday to a dear ancient man
"Thank you sweetheart," in the same voice as his son
knotting my throat in the lonely homesickness
of a true Father's Daughter.
There are certain tones that pierce us-
those which remind us of what is most beloved
and what we must accept to lose.