I feel your eyes emblazoned as stars
stitched into a river of ebony
your hands, how they extend from heaven
wading across our distance
tasting of cedar and salt to my mind
of every dream I've yet to realize

I squeeze the rind of you
from coastal sunsets
drinking your essence as blood red pulp
you sing within the cicadas' song
as I wander through tufted sea oats
searching, longingly, for your voice

the whimsical splash
of your laughter is a brilliant fusion
of lemon, fuchsia, and tangerine zinnias
framing my cottage pathway
you become the smile
of every face I encounter,  
the tickling glimmer of sunlight
between scrolls of Spanish moss
dripping like lace from my heart

you are wisteria and wine
late summer afternoons spent
in naked conversation
I want to be drunk on you today,
tomorrow, every day
we're promised tucked
beneath your chin,
slumbering to the sound
of your cool rain
coating oak leaves

Do poets adopt the art of words
naturally, or is it an act
of desperation, speaking
from subterranean spaces
to exhume our suppressed voices,
to find a silent corridor
where our defiance finds sound?

And if we speak, do others listen,
or is it merely an act of resistance,
this conversation within ourselves?
We awaken as others sleep
stacking words, restoring trust
in the unoccupied zones of us.

By dawn, we smile behind
a scaffold of eyes and nodding hands,
comply with the day's demands
anticipating nightfall

when, once again,

we release them-
the destitute, the vagrants
of our exiled selves,
who take refuge in tent cities
built of verse to weather, together,
the long cold nights ahead.

She drapes her beauty
over a gossamer sleeve

breathes music box melody

through the spindles of dreams

elopes with the stars

and whispers
lavish possibilities

through a cauldron of clouds

she, the whimsy,
midnight Blues fantasy

seeped in gin
drizzled over
my sins

she is madness
and meaning

commingled in
pearlescent
glow

honesty comes from peeling back
the veneer of who you thought to see
(the self in me they'll find pleasing)
for the dirt floor essence of my reality

I am no longer Spring's scented bloom
of night jasmine or periwinkle
the smile lines crease my face
and there's an arc to my laughter
that wasn't there 10 years before

when I listen to you, I see
both what you wish to say
as well as what your thoughts imply
and, sometimes, (well, more often
than I'd care to admit),
I pour a glass to numb
the aching world collecting
between my toes,
leaving callouses
on my heart

yes, I'm good at posing smiles
to silence the creaking floorboards
that gnaw me awake inside
but tonight,
here's a toast to
authentic reflections,
bleary eyed
with streaks of silver hair
luxuriously lining
the sheen of youth's ebony

here's to patience
and forgiveness
and an unrelenting
taste for love