She wears her mood
like a robe
bright, bold
dark or dusty
and with it
she colors the world
poet
August
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
July
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
June
She is lightening
in black sky
a roiling sea
measured by leagues
a river, with surface glass
and rushing flow beneath
May
In you I came to know birth and death
neither remembered nor explained
an ellipses
space only guessed
April
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
March
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
January
You were cold when I met you
with bitter winds and sleet that chilled the bones
and stung bare skin
Etched
but beautiful and dazzling
sun on shards of broken glass
a blizzard, a tumult
a beginning
Reconciliation
she didn’t do it right
the baby came first
but not before the one that didn’t
because there was a clinic in Chicago
that would take care of the problem
so he said…
And it did for a little while,
take care of the “problem” which was
in fact
to hide the fact that she was not
the “girl” she was expected to be
…secrets were born instead
The second became the first to
change the shape of things
though still no ring
…a circle if you will
of impatient nights and restless days
and wondering why it all turned out so different
than her dreams
…but still a dream
with little fingers and new eyes
through which she viewed the world
an ocean swell of love to wash her clean
she found her reconciliation
Ghost
The taste of dark brew
conversations overheard
from a wooden chair at the coffee shop
where the clatter of glass
a laugh a smile
all of these are reminders
of what was had and what is lost
and of the fleeting, dizzying pace of time
all things go on
as I go on
your ghost
like fading photographs
my company
Golifely 