From the outset, the marriage had
been a troubling one...a springtime
honeymoon in London with frigid
winds and dark April skies only
added to the gloom.

Their rocky union consisted of
alcohol-fueled marital warfare
...arguments endlessly erupting,
the 'silent treatment' dividing
them, bitter trial separations...
but somehow something always pulled
them back together until that one awful
morning when he found her lifeless body
next to him in bed, the victim of a stroke.

Weeks later he made a shocking discovery
...her hidden journals shoved inside a
trunk in a dark corner of their cluttered
attic - diaries filled with deception,
a litany of love affairs, heartless
couplings, page after page of secret
passions featuring a  cast of paramours
catering to her every intimate whim.

And then he pondered his own romantic
intrigues slipping in and out of his
own life all those years they shared.
But he was certain she had no idea what
he'd been up to - she'd been entirely
clueless. She never mentioned them in her
private journals. She'd never accused him
of anything like that. She never knew
he'd ever been unfaithful. It was
simply not possible...
or was it?

There is no adventure in him.

He knows only that there are trees.
He does not see lumber camps
or feel the strength of men
in black checkered shirts.
He cannot touch their red leather skins
or smell their hot whiskey breaths.
He does not see logs on the river.

I have tried to speak to him of Indian canoes
and rafts on the Mississippi.
I have tried to share leaf scents
and wood-burning fires
when everything is cold outside.

But he is content to just find shade
by the northeast window.

There is no adventure in him.

Shining by the sun's reflected light,
the moon's lumpy comical face
squats over rooftops,
grins at the fate
of mere earthlings

Soon footprints of men
will mark its smirk
while this one death on earth,
sealed in slack tide,
is unhinged,
rising slowly from a pond
while arias and omens resonate
in the muggy calm

new year's eve
is way too much
too much to drink
to feel to touch

midnight comes midnight goes
time to shuck all those clothes
desire dances from dusk till dawn
new year's eve all night long

as dawn approaches
the man on the sofa wakes up

stockings are empty

living room looks like normandy
   after the invasion
crumpled gift wrap everywhere
ribbons and bows languishing
   lazily on the floor
the dog sleeping soundly like
   someone snuck her a bowl of gin

the note to santa has disappeared
like the fat turkey plopped down on
the dining room table, all prettied up
for the christmas feast

and now everyone is left with today

holiday depression ensues

the man on the sofa longs to see
something joyful, something that
says there's more to life
than the gray of winter
the chill in the wind
the loneliness of long
silent nights ahead

he knows he's old, tired,
too disillusioned about the world
to make sense of anything anymore

he feels that hope is an
endangered belief that eludes
too many people now

in defeat, in resignation, he
returns to the ultimate escape...
a peaceful, dreamless sleep far
from the uncertain present

and outside
the sun
like hope itself -
bright and glowing -
begins to rise

It was a water-cooler rumor,
an office joke circulating,
all about 'the girl in the picture' -
a framed photo on my desk.
They called her 'the mystery girl,'
a radiant blue-eyed brunette
with a beguiling smile. They
said they couldn't believe
someone so great looking would
ever have eyes for me, would
ever care about me, would ever
share my hopes and dreams. They
thought it was a lark. They even
said she didn't exist because
they never saw her, she never called
me at the office, never met me
for lunch

Tough! I thought. She's very shy,
very timid. She's an artist, she
works out of our apartment, she's
not a people person. But they didn't
believe me because I never brought
her with me - to Christmas parties or
weddings or the company picnic in May.
They said I made her up, that the picture
on my desk was something I got from a
stock photo book or from something I
picked up off the shelf of a dollar store

Give me a break!

And then the unthinkable happened.
She left me - just like that!
There was a note and nothing else.
I still don't understand it.
I quit my job. I cleaned out my
desk at the office and went back
to the apartment...she seemed to be
everywhere...in pictures all over,
her smile beaming at me from
every room

Now in my loneliness, in my drift
toward sleep each night, my heart
is hollow. I murmur her name in
the darkness...'Arianna...Arianna...'
- a name like the wind - free, restless,
rhapsodic, an anthem bursting
from my heart, the answer to my
most desperate prayers