Tonight is not turning my bike around when it started to pour.
Tonight is rain pelting my skin, soaking my clothes, filling my shoes with water.
Tonight is searching for the rainbow and not finding it.
Tonight is gratitude for the bumpy road and the hard saddle between my legs (yeah, I said that).
Tonight is watching two people carry two ducks down the road and then go swimming with them.
Tonight is pushing ******* the hills, taking the corners a little too fast, risking the new, smooth tires on the sandy gravel road and nearly wiping out, but not.
Tonight is gratitude for my legs, my heart, my lungs, my spirit that will not settle for easy, that keeps pushing through day after day.
Tonight is racing the darkness home and winning, just barely.
Tonight is coming home to a cat who loves me and ice cream waiting.

She had two kids
a husband
a full time job.
Being tired
was normal,
expected.

A summer hike
rendered her dizzy
too weak almost
to finish.

By winter she found
herself passed out
at a concert.
Anemia they told her.

A pain in her stomach
Dismissed as an ulcer.
Tests and more tests
and finally
they discovered
the cells gone haywire
multiplying in the colon
spreading into the liver.

Four months they said.
A year later cells were all
she had become.
They ate her alive.
My mother.

Wake with the sun,
the song of the birds
Tangled and sweaty
Legs entwined, head on heart
Hand in curls wild from night

Speak of dreams, fears, hopes
Love comes easily,
tenderly, softly without apology
Snuggle closer, alarm be ******
Add sticky to sweaty,
a stew of sustenance
Fuel for the day
Your face above mine
Your breath in my ear
Your love fills me
I carry you with me
As morning turns to day

Layered

Spring is stubborn this year
and we are layered,
the ocean in front of us does its thing not a care in the world for us,
the wind blows our hair,
chills our necks,
not caring either.
The sun shines down on our
pale faces and feet
bringing out freckles
that make him smile.
I peel an orange,
we scoop avocado from its shell, eat dolmas,
sink our bodies
into layer upon layer of sand.

We take off layers of clothing,
put them back on,
the same dance we do with our minds unraveling the layers of our emotions, our willingness to be vulnerable.
In front of us the ocean does not care about any of this,
content in its own rhythms
steadily caressing the shore.
We sit in silence unraveled.

Your smell lingers on me
mixing with lilac and grass
it makes me heady,
full of longing
You smell good

Everywhere lovers greet the day
A duck couple crosses
in front of me on the bike path
I love you

A wild turkey struts his stuff
for his girl and all to see
You are beautiful

Bumblebees **** nectar from every blossom they find
You taste good

A woman lies a blanket
on a mountain top,
fusses with it,
waits for her man
I want to hold you

I sit on a tree stump, freshly cut
its life-long lover
still stands strong next to it
shading me from the sun
I’m sorry

Last night at dusk
as the peepers called to
their lovers and the
frogs croaked to theirs
a young deer,
confused by a fence
rammed herself
over and over into it

A few feet away
the fence ended
and the deer could have
run right through
had she the where-with- all
to stop her ramming
and just look

I watched and tried
to coax her
until finally she spooked
and ran the other way,
across the path
and into the woods
where she disappeared
as if she had never
been there at all

Today I want to sit
sun warming my face,
thawing the cold ground.
I want to write of you,
a love story,
my love story.
Ours.

I want to write of your face
Above me,
below me,
next to me
In the throws of passion or
on the verge of tears.

I want to write of your body.
Not just your body
but ours, together.
The way we move like waves
on an ever changing shore,
familiar, desperate,
soft and gentle.

I want to write of your heart.
The way it melts me with its kindness. It’s capacity and desire to know me and understand without fear.

I want to write of your mouth.
Oh god your mouth!
I really have no adequate words for how delicious it is.
Swallow me whole.
I want to feed you everything.