when you wake at noon
i watch your slow movements - your veins traced by sunlight.
the veil of night lifted from your tired eyes.
the open window reminds us of summer's end,
and the inevitable.

i loved you by the river,
your hair pressed into the rain-soaked sand and dead leaves.
caught up in the morning's faintest glow. the firefly lit evening.
of all my spinning thoughts, swirling and dying;
there was you.
my hand on your knee, i kissed you at the traffic stop.
you are blue and red all at once. both winter and summer.
a gift given in secret, tucked away into hollowed bones.