She always needed cigarets.
I'd put on shoes and start the truck,
Allow the heater time to warm,
Then she'd get in, barefoot and drunk.
I didn't care what argument
They'd had, just that she'd come again.
Some nights we only talked, or watched
Some cheesy movie, rom coms or
One night I put in Annie Hall,
Because she'd never seen it and
We made love.  She  missed the  lobster scene,
So I  switched it back once I could
Move and she stayed till morning, not
Sure if she could go back again.

Something resists understanding
The early exit of a friend.
I do believe in accidents,
The unpopular opinions
Of poets, children and lost dogs,
Finding anything but false hope
A good reason to continue,
Without the promise of success.
Her beautiful smile and the dog
She loved gave up life together.
Now you and I sleep fitfully,
Foresworn to secret shatterings.
No use to speak of mercy, God's
Own grim partner rakes the land.

Her kindness outshines all the words
I've ever heard, makes mockery
Of all the efforts and rewards
Of soporific poetry,
Or even inspiration's spawn.
I'd give up language casually,
To lie beside her on that lawn
Believers reckon victory.
But this is not the world's release,
The dust that Genesis laid down,
When all our toils and sorrows cease.
So I'll forsake the starry crown,
For life's uncertain pilgrim's lease,
Renewed each time I see her face.

Proffer
the moon, and stars
As love-tokens; I give
you dirt from near this undisturbed
rose bush.

When I awaken, inevitably,
In the middle of the night, the black cat,
His slender, aged frame beneath my feet,
Accompanies me to the Frigidaire
Where his food sets waiting in a tin can
Outside of time and space and just beside
My next stop, the modest lavatory,
So good to have inside at three a.m.
On a winter's night, then comes to my chair,
Found outside on the sidewalk, improvement
On the one before, and sits on its arm,
My partner sleeping on the other side,
Stretched out on the sofa, infirm but loved,
As I graft another line on St. James.

You may be patient but the dream
has little need of time tonight,
collapsing any measure deemed
sufficient for the tempter's height,
slow leaving questions in its wake,
crisp flavors of the early frost
on carvings that the children make
in stone & fruit or newel post,
abrupt cessation of the slide
down slanted stairs at harvest time,
when color has no place to hide
and reason sees no need to rhyme.
We'll soon enough lay down the dream,
releasing it to what it means.