We share the cooking, her couch, and our bungled pasts
and uncertainty (yet again) knots within me:
It's too soon
It's too late
It will end badly
It will begin badly
Someone, somewhere, will laugh at my audacity
She is wrong for me
She will stop me with a wince and a pat on the arm,
telling me I'm sweet but ...
A day and a mile later
the die waits in my hand, ready to cast,
the river running before me
A voice says
It is our laughter that swirls between us,
shaping possibilities into existence
The universe scintillates not with risk
but with boundless opportunity
I watch her smile
and I choose complexity,
my hands now on her skin and her eyes in mine
A week and four thousand miles later
there is only an empty tupperware,
one of hers sitting mismatched on my shelf
Perhaps the two of them are laughing now
It is complex indeed, and audacious,
but not having dared
would have been foolish
-- Summer 2006
She is well-traveled with Troy leagues behind her Having lashed herself to the mast, she would sail by -- but for my siren song She has withstood much but now with clear-eyed purpose her fingers stretch to loosen her own bonds-- Fall 2006
The touch of her hand, the sparkle of her smiling eyes, a wildflower given without condition -- these make me want to respond in kind, and more Thus impelled, we spiral upward toward heights as yet unseen-- Fall 2006
I disproved your existence most of a lifetime ago -- another soul as eccentric as mine occurs as an absurdly long product of vanishingly small improbabilities Nose to nose grinning and transparent we defy all reason-- Fall 2006
Younger, I had been a ghost moving through the world but not seen by it Our simple touch completes my resubstantiation-- Fall 2006
It cannot work Driving over, my thoughts cross back and forth, tracing two cardboard cut-out incompatible personalities -- all over but the hard words -- my decision is simple She leans out the window on my arrival looking for me, with a stray wisp of hair on her cheek and a half-smile on her face She knows, and does not know It is not so easily ended-- Summer 2007
I ran into her again last night
Months of greetings strobed suddenly through my memory
like a two-body recap of Flowers for Algernon --
someone I once barely knew,
someone for whom my passion burned,
yet again someone I know
Hi, how are you?
I like you
I love you
I like you
Hi, how are you?
-- Summer 2007
Autumn is the traditional metaphor for dying --
winter is death; spring, rebirth
Not so in the desert --
it is at most a change of hue;
no dirges need play
People bring out their sweaters
as the wind blows a little sharper
Alone tonight, I was particularly aware of this
I miss you sometimes
and yet
a woman smiled and greeted me this evening --
I looked her in the eyes and introduced myself
In that moment
all was already well
-- Fall 2007