A blue boat
in the Mediterranean,
seven hundred balance,
broken, silent,
an unchosen arc,
rocking hearts dulled
by a slender chance
at survival.

Bitter dread grips
those not in boats,
greeted by the unexpected,
fumbling the knot of wrongdoing.
Surprised faces
bob in peaks and troughs.

Somewhere
between the
abandonment of hope
and the next breath
lies arrival.
A remembrance of
a buoyancy,
a slender space
of kindness,
holds all refugee stories
breathing freely
wave after wave.

You came to me
white calloused soles
soft on dry Spring leaves,
skin braced against
the cool haze
now burning off.
You wore your naked skin
bravely, bearing scars
inside and out
shy, afraid
nothing left to give up
but simple approach.
I knelt, kissed your feet
falling instantly in love
with your awkward knees,
the stub of your ***,
the sinews in your shoulders.
It was this. A meeting
and the world was
not the same.

Unending happiness,
abundant distraction,
uninterrupted good fortune.
Just garden variety
excess.
What I got was best.
A clamped on winter sky
casting doubt, monotony.
A shopworn body,
maintenance required.
Never enough in
the coffers for my taste.
The usual
troublesome happenstance.
Desolation and beauty
are close cousins
pushing and pulling
rough housing,
as they do.
Throw your lucky penny
in the fountain
and walk away.
See if you wish it were still
in your pocket.
Then let it go.

Sometimes I must do nothing.
Not wash the sheets,
not vacuum, just
stare into the generosity
of the Red Oak,
whose loving indifference
is achingly intimate.
Her branches gnarled,
hidden by green plumes
desiring sun, wanting time
to let be.
What does she see of me
thumbing a poem
on a glass box to join
the unfinished poems
I leave in my wake?
The tree smiles,
today we are one,
I in my green,
you with a period
at the end of your poem.

When is too late?
Does the sun rise warm
on the face of the blind?
Do the deaf hear
the longing in a resolved chord?
Is a ravaged memory
consumed by the absence of thought?
A body ripens until
it frightens the young.
Wrinkled hands once
caressed alert skin
spreading ecstasy
in wide arcs.
Who owns these finite moments
immersed in the infinite?
Swept into the union
of the ocean
time has forever
lost what is tardy.

A hollow chest once vigorous and tight,
now rises slowly contemplating
the next breath.
My father lies unable to get up,
or eat, or move his legs,
a beautiful shell stripped of everything
but the basic choice to love the
desolation that is left.
I converse with him,
my feet on the floor, legs ready to
run for help or cover.
I stay, mesmerized and curious,
a man in and out of
a space much larger than his useless
legs can take him. Is it a journey, Dad,
just as they say? And by your breath, you are telling
me you are leaving? But where will
I go when torment comes and the ground
shifts beneath me and the only solace
I know is the flesh of the man
who trusted life enough to risk
bringing me here.
Have I taken hold of life with
enough resolution to walk from your room and say
my own risks are enough? My own mistakes
can stand inside this air we share together?
When you stop and I continue,
we will drop our dueling swords, our eagerness
to pace the other. The cavity inside you
grows empty, my attempts to
send you the smallest drop,
a reminder of fullness, do not belong now.
We breath together, an hour or more.
My conversation has fallen away.
I feel the warmth of your face,
the last time, as it turns out. The act of courage
for the night, my measured steps
making distance I cannot replace.