Breaking out of deep sea fog
in moist full moonlight
buoys rocking bells
We’re all coming ashore.
Who of all these passengers
gets to make love tonight?
Lean brown lovers kiss on the deck
their smooth hair blows together.
A fat grey man and his shabby wife
eat potato chips in the snack bar,
their feet touch under the table.
When he brings her coffee she smiles,
with one rough finger strokes his hand.
I stopped asking.
Things happen anyway,
we stay or go:
never what I think.
And yet,
there is a kind of love,
a river slow as Everglades
moving through sawgrass,
flood sometimes,
sometimes dry.
Not deep, but wide,
and most days enough
to float the canoe.
A winding road through the bright-leaved maples,
a hillside orchard where a girl sells apples,
a brown cow pond with wind stirring ripples.
A narrow path to the river shallows,
a strip of pebbles under the willows,
a muddy bank where the otter wallows.
The old stone bridge across the water
beside the oak where thrushes flutter o’er
ghost-white flowers where moths sip nectar.
The village street, dark, with circles of lamplight,
a call and a laugh, the squeak of a lychgate,
a soft step, a sigh, a quickening heartbeat.
Sugar,
You are my fantasy.
An enigma
that is wrapped
around my body.
I try to push you
away,
but you keep
coming back to me.
Baby,
why are you so
addicted to
my ecstasy?
All of my flaws
are on display,
yet, you stay,
I think it rains,
to show an emotion
that is otherwise unspoken.
Little is said,
yet, with every drop,
the connection between
us grows stronger.
The wall that we both
built to guard our hearts
has fallen.
We are naked,
Our vulnerabilities on full display.
We are no longer suffocating.
We are able to
take a deep breath.
Our love is set free from the clouds,
I don't know how I wound up in your arms
My prince of broken, discarded glass,
I know your mirror broke but in your cold beating heart,
Warmth finally reaches you.
At first glance you were brutal,
Stubborn even.
But to an trained eye the way you moved had the power of a lion,
And the delicacy of an angel.
I believe that under your shirt is a pair of wings.
I don't know how I wound up in your arms,
My prince of burning, scolding fire.
I know you were torn but my love,
Green envy can kill you with a blow.
At first glance you were cruel,
Somber and glowering even.
but to a trained eye a rainbow was the one thing you truly loved.
barely a streak of light shone over my eyes and yet i was blinded
a palette of monotonous grey filled with white, filled with all colour
a shivering bud bloomed into a throned rose
barely a whisper of wind brushed over my hand and yet i was shoved
a small step suddenly a staggering cliff
a stingy puddle grown into an intimidating ocean
barely anything happened at all
nothing evolved, nothing sprouted, nothing expanded
nothing at all
except
after your eyes caught mine
i thought for a moment
that we belonged to this place
to any place
any place, any time
if you were there and so was i
Each morning lately I have woke
to the sounds of birds singing.
It is a reminder than even before I wake
you are with me.
Eyes still closed I listen for your breath
in those few peaceful moments
I remember the taste of your lips
and your lingering scent on my pillow
There is no greater moment in my day
and I cling to it for every last second
until I have to open my eyes
you may not be lying next to me
But I know, that you want to be
of a journey made
for love is like
a slow drip of
the sweetest
Nectar,
and every detail
of preparation
partakes.
Is the actual
departure, then,
some kind
of anticlimax?
Perhaps in a way,
since imagination
is so much more intimately
part of everything we do
I am sending this is you
keeping me up late.
I waited a long time.
I came first, got a job in this hotel
down by the river. Folks stay here
before they go on the riverboats.
Mostly they’re nice people,
but things can get rough sometimes.
I’m glad I’m in the kitchen.
He said he’d come
right after he helped the parents
with the butchering and the beans,
but that time was well past,
and I hadn’t even had a letter.
“It’s a long way,” Cook kept telling me,
“a long walk. But he’ll come,
I can feel it in my bones.”
Cook caught me crying this morning
I like it when he comes in here, after supper,
when the washing up is mostly done
and I’m just mopping the table
and setting things to rights.
He sits on the flour barrel in the corner
and plays his music, and sings.
We don’t talk much.
I don’t suppose there would be trouble if we did–
who cares what an old Irishman
and an old woman like me do in our free time?
Mam said I was lucky to get this work,
but I think not lucky–I’m a good cook,
and they know it. At least I got a couple things
out of the plantation–cooking, and my baby.
I’m glad she’s up north now.
It’s not safe here for a pretty girl like her,