I watched you break away from the tether that bound you
Bobbling haplessly into the heights
Guided by wind’s unseen current, this way and that
Until the chains of gravity could not pull you back
I watched you become
A contrasting pinpoint in the clear blue
Rising toward the sun
By now
you hope you learned
from past mistakes
you read self help
ponder Lao Tzu
watch the willows bend
and not break
and think that
by now
you should see mistakes
sidestep the mess
with a skip in your step
whistle past distractions
and noise and regrets
that hold you
By now…
She wears her mood
like a robe
bright, bold
dark or dusty
and with it
she colors the world
beautiful boy
with dark lashes and brown eyes
my first best friend
we played in innocence
held hands and walked in stride
you were sunshine, in my lonely world
of beaches and butterflies
Rainbows are dripping from the ceilings amid giggles from little girls
happiness lives here and I wonder how I’ve lived so long
without remembering
She is lightening
in black sky
a roiling sea
measured by leagues
a river, with surface glass
and rushing flow beneath
In you I came to know birth and death
neither remembered nor explained
an ellipses
space only guessed
Ants crawl slowly on the cold tile floor
of a place I’d rather not be
I watch them move somewhat pointedly but
in no particular direction
Disorderly confusion, actually
I am lost and searching
and they are lost and searching
over the expanse of marbled squares
for some small crumb to carry home
Roads to somewhere are always lined with dead things once headed
north, south, east or west of where they now lie still
the living pass the gaping mouths and fixed eyes
without thought to their own fragility
or how this road beginning
is something’s ending
to begin again as something new
You began the conversation with
“We need to talk”
but talk is the last thing I wanted
I knew it signaled the demise of the silence
that held things tightly and neatly in place
It would begin the process of unboxing
which is messy, in words
Our winter come to end
in dignified formality
you were gone
