Sometimes journeys are best taken
Alone. The time of day
When the world is so new,
It hurts. Raw and pink at the edges.
Just me, myself, and I
And the frozen mist of my breath
As if to say
That if I spoke, the words would hang
In the air. Unforgotten, though no one was there
To hear them.
But I do not speak
The day is yet too brittle.
Before me stretch a line of footprints
Muddy outlines in the newborn snow.
Someone has already tasted
This morning, making me
Just a little guilty
For drinking from another’s cup.
Walking slowly, I match their stride.
Placing each foot in its matching slot.
The fit is perfect. It might
As well have been me.
Two me’s, two mornings.
With a chilled smile, I walk on
No longer alone.
Accompanied but walkers
Mornings past
And mornings yet to come.

Give me your heart strings, baby,
And I’ll weave them into a swing.
We’ll swing until we’re old, baby,
If only your heartstrings hold, baby,
If only they hold.

New buds of spring, all
Green and quiver timid
Like the sensitive skin of her fingertips,
Young and soft.
Will he kiss the secret skin in the crook of her elbow?
Or will the
Lazy heat of summer’s lingering kiss
Trace a well-known, hidden path down her
Leaf-shadow throat?
Does the breeze, running long fingers through her hair
Enjoy it’s silty silk?
Or do the
Shiver leaves, so black against the sunset,
Make crepe paper shadows?
Flat against the bleed of color
Like a stencil in the mirror
Whose haughty brown and curving lips
Seem more warming, more polite
Than the wrinkled, crinkled features
Of the crone
Whose profile blocks the light.