1 New Poem

Opposite Charges

One day, you’ll be the rain,
electric in form,
no longer so entrapped, enraptured
by passing of skin from itself,
and lighter now for being left.

But I would chase you,
still remembering,
the weary way I looked at
old postcards of Italy,
how women bathed in seaside waters.

Letting go: one day,
you’ll be the wind and we’ll rush
through each other as we
stop from now, still
selfish in our present shapes.

Mesh and interlock, go forth
for closure sought as less shame
and more the possible past
we had as name etchings in

Winter ponds from breeze branches.

1 New Poem

White Tulips

Muck-gray and silence outside,
sleet sheets washing down concrete
places we stood in time to street corner
symphonies now quiet.

You took the water, filled plastic
cups and spun to catch light
in tangles of hair (falling frames
around half-moon smile).

I took your hand and
pressed to cheek, feeling
a world’s wonder warmth beneath
old, battered visage.

The day beyond, stretched out
as lazing animals in separation
again, we were dreaming
of bleached flowers

And the spring dawn.

1 New Poem

A Cottage in Nova Scotia

I picture us one day,
distant in time
(just past in feeling),
at a cottage in Nova Scotia.

When we’ve both gone graying,
dulled in spectrums seen, heard,
but still reach for each other
as instinct in morning light.

And you smile still like it was
clutching nervous hands on bachelor apartment
couches, like it was
the first pulses of mine

You felt quicken through skin;
amazed at how you transform me,
make it all go rushing,
so unlike gentle dock waves.

I picture us dancing
in sock feet on kitchen linoleum
to beats that took us a flutter
between frying pan handles, one old night.

I picture myself,
face lined from a lifetime’s
laughing at the
goodness we took chances

On one day (far gone,
held close for feeling);
compelled enough to drop
wary glances for loving looks.

I picture us reading over
news of the day as sun
streams off wood grain panel
and we look back on

All years spent in tangles
of arms, swelling of
breath as we bridged the
few inches left between us.

I picture us in a cottage
in Nova Scotia, saying same
soft spoken phrases we do now,
but knowing them to have held

Steadfast, true.