I never thought it would be you.

                                                     You tossed crumpled maps over your shoulder
                                                        ­                            waiting for me to unglue my
                                                                ­                                  eyes from the steady
                                                          ­                                                             comp­***.

                                                           ­    You leapt from stone to stone and branch
                                                          ­                      to branch while I tiptoed across
                                                                ­                               the rocks careful not to
                                                              ­                                                                 ­  slip.

                                                      You filled every hour with chance and opened
                                                          ­           your arms to uncertainty while I held
                                                                ­              mine close in case the breath ran
                                                             ­                                                                 ­   out.
You thought it could be me.

You helped me play in the morning
light without looking over my
shoulder for the darkening
sky.

You gently led me to mountainous cliffs
with views that almost made
me forget I could
fall.

You drank my worry like fresh water
instead of the bitter poison
I thought was my
burden.

                                You tossed the map and I can't find the compass
                                              and it couldn't be you but there
                                                       in the middle of your
                                                            ­ palm lies my
                                                                ­   north.

if you stand and close
your eyes you might feel

a chilly kiss brush across
your cheek and wet

your motionless lips
with yet unspoken sentences

you might hear the calm
of tomorrow's breath as she

whispers promises of
a certain sunrise

if you open your eyes
you might see the exquisite

chaos falling from a
triumphant sky

if you stretch out your
hands you just might

catch a moment of bliss
in your empty palm before

it softly lands on
the powdered earth.

I used to think it exquisite.
Some beautiful power
weaving expert, impeccable knots.

But precision does    not
   come so
                    easily
undone.

No.  Only a mirage
of strength.  
Tenuous,
     fragile,
w a v e r i n g
at the slightest threat of indifference.

Find an anchor, then.
Wind it tightly
aroundandaround,
overandunder itself.
Let us grab hold
til our fingers go numb.

It cannot go slack.
                            Don't slip.
                            Please
                 don't let go
before I find my way
back

to you.

Sometimes you talk in your sleep.  

A startled shout or
burst
of laughter and I
stumble

out of my latest dream
and into your
drowsy dialogue,
eager

to catch a glimpse of these
nighttime companions but
they scatter
back to silence

the moment i turn my head.

jersey sheets cascaded off the
bed but we never felt the cold
beside you like the august sun
every touch a blaze of insight

foreign heat tiptoed through
your hands and into mine as our bodies
curled away from apprehension
and into the warmth of each other

every moment without your breath
a black hole opened in space till
my lips found yours and we were back
made of nothing but sensation

my stomach shuddered with jolts
of exquisite surprise as your quiet
fingertips brushed softly over
waves of untouched terrain

in the curve of your arms I found
a substitute for emptiness
a cure for quiet and lonely dreams
in the rise and fall of your chest

what we might have had if you stayed
now only the sheets drape my skin
as I shiver in your tracks and
wait for august to come again

your hand lingers warm
when we wake to translucent sky
drinking morning like champagne
     voiceless questions melt with the darkness

perhaps yesterday listened.

We prepare to push off, you and I, tightly
bundled against the chilly wind.  You stop
to shake snow from your furry-lined shoes
(you should have brought boots), and my
lenses fog from our breath, the frames
askew. I climb in front, tentative, winding
my scarf once more across my face.
The sled tips as you squeeze behind,
feet sneaking through my arms and across
my lap. The plastic starts to move beneath
us and I'm not ready but we're going,
we're soaring, (I wish I could see your
expression), across the slippery cold,
and my breath is gone somewhere
in the drift and we're flying but
you're there and then the world stops
moving. I'm covered in white as I wipe
the wetness from my cheek and I hear
laughter so I turn to look at your smile.
It is then that my breath finds its way
back and I realize it's me who is laughing.

She cannot open the morning

paper without the blackened number

distracting her resistant vision;

higher every day, how

many will it be this time? How many

fathers, mothers, sons, daughters tremble

beneath their futile camouflage, nightmares

unfolding across vacant eyes

and salt-frosted eyelashes? She cradles

a cup of steaming coffee between

her unstained fingers, new wedding

band tapping the hard ceramic. Imagines

his, pressed into calloused skin that hasn't

touched hers in months, too preoccupied

with learning the art form of enforced regret.

At night she stares at the ceiling, welcoming

insomnia, too afraid of what sleep

might bring. Her photograph lies folded against

his chest, thousands of miles away from

the empty side of the bed; sometimes

she forgets in the heat of a dream and turns,

greeted silently by the unwrinkled pillow and

faint smell of his favorite shampoo.