I stare at the screen
at me not replying to you
to pat myself on the back.
Read my silence.

The morning is yours
even when you're not next to me.
The room falls into the hole in the bead
where your body isn't.
I roll over three times
and bring you here.
I feel your foot touch mine,
a hand trace up my spine.
Light cracks the blinds in two
just to remind me how empty I am of you.

The wine bottle fell to the ground,
it shattered and looked just like family.
On my hands and knees I avoided its glass.
And mopped up its blood.

Bending over with an outstretched hand
a father dancing in the grocery store aisle.
I watch and hold the memory like it's my own.

Spilled on the ground in rivers of red
we try to push it back in, but it's gone now.
I'll try to hold tighter next time.

I think this is the last week of summer
and I’m glad.
I don’t mean to be impatient
or ungrateful for the sun’s work
but the leaves are tired of holding on,
and so am I.

I can't sleep at home without a pill.
--
My bed is a stranger's.

I'm hiding under the covers so my cat doesn't see me crying, because it feels like I saw death for the first time tonight. It looked me in the eyes and it held me under the water without any breathe.
The cat's tail cut through the air like a conductor's baton orchestrating nature's symphony. Life cat seeks death bird. And nature has its way.
But baby bird was alive when the cat arrived inside, triumphant. Picking a side makes me a hypocrite but I choose bird anyway. Up into the flower box, baby bird watches the sun setting and I watch too.
But nature has its way. Baby bird is gone when I go back to pass on a smile. Into the orange sky, I hope. Into life!
Baby bird didn't find the orange but it found the blue. Face down and wings out, soaring. I can see baby bird, hop drop from the flower box hop hop by the petunias hop flutter hop splash. The blue took my breathe tonight too.
I'm hiding tonight because why should there be a pool where green has authority. Nature has its way.

I've been walking more
and leaving the big machine behind
to put myself in the way of beauty.
I find it.
In the fingers of the trees
reaching to the purple sky
splaying in their radial dance,
I find it.
On the cracking cement
where a dog left its footprint forever
and the grass reclaims its home,
I find it.
When the wind picks up my hair
to teach me how to lighten up
like the leaves that dance around me,
I find it.
Even as I close my eyes tight,
the fragrance of a night blossom
paints itself across my mind
and I find it.