These gasps of light
are the gaps in tonight
these downward globes
of ivory snow.

The world didn't end.
The world
didn't.

My bones lie aching here
writing for love
in this borrowed new year.

I know not whom
I hold most dear
How do I face
The world didn't end...
*another new year?

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.