Lemon Bay

In October these waters
lie as mirrors to dawn’s languid light,
silvered lemon in liquid chiffon,
in curcumin rinsed trees.

I have Scimitar anchored here.
canvassed and tight for the winter,
a sleek portrait of summer
locked in autumn repose.

Rose and coral sluice the sky
in watercolor smears
as I sit upon the jetty pines
listening to the Heron cackle,
and the water lap against my heart.

 

Bright Innocence

The gravel rasped beneath our steps,
crepitus pops,
a clatter-wet rasp,
like the rales in momma’s lungs.

In your paten Sunday shoes,
in my sole worn Thom McAns,
your navy skirt,
my Sear’s Best ‘elasto’ poly-slacks.

You took me there
sharing its space
as if giving passage - a penance,
its secret to me.
It’s existence a privacy,
some closet part of you,
a place where your heart could run riot.

I clenched that time
in adolescent fists,
never knowing such bright innocence again.

Cross Sectioned

Seasons… years
settle into our knuckles,
the layers of our bones.
Solar rings around us to be counted.

Can they tell the droughts,
the cultural infestations,
Housewives of Atlanta,
racism, intolerance,
Hiltons and Biebers?

Can they see the firestorms,
the angst we endured?
Can they fell us for parts
and know how we lived?
When you quit?
The last time we cried?

Returned

On a dark ozark highway,
a river of souring stars
     her reflection leaving his mirrors
     her tears burning hot in his heart.
still an hour from Joplin,
four more from her arms.

The rain comes
in a Kansas rage,
trees whip like screwed up mops/.
The blackness is complete
as hail pelts his jacket,
stinging his hands and thighs.

Ice litters the road
steaming in the headlamps.
He waits, engine chortling,
imagines her rising
in the dawn as he arrives.
     her reflection leaving his mirrors
     her tears burning hot in his heart.
He wants to know her eyes,
her thighs again,
he wants to feel this love,
the power of him... returned.

Press Play

I watched us prattle
warm with nostalgia, sangria, and smiles
as the years ran between us,
like honey savored,
like a favored show
we’d all missed watching.

I listened as we straddled
decades and datelines,
milestones and biographies.
I wondered, grinning at the parallels
the symmetries, the mirrors,
the kindred geographies.

We’ve been a sentence paused…
resumed - a bookmark,
frozen - as if stuck in a DVR.
Old friends back home,
a favorite novel picked up,
jeans that fit just right.
We been histories churning,
lost stories,
swallowed tears for what we lost,
smiles for who we’ve been.

Totems

carved now
into this time we nestled,
brooding in vain for life.

organic,
slick with morning rain
our spirits
slack with daily news.

Silhouettes on the wall
shuddering
flickering
to the headlights passing,
a kabuki drama
of rusty Datsuns,
dilettante Furies
and ticky-tacky Fords.

Infinity’s dance,
calving,
from the bliss we realized.

Heretic,
these half-lives that rinse our hearts.

Yesterdays too honest to hold you
in less than all that you are.

Behind these Curtains

Behind these curtains,
this morning swirls
like a sweet chilled wine,
autumn’s tardy kiss
to this summer seared skin.
You can hear the last wheeze,
the ease of relief from the land.

My garden has perked up the squash,
the marigolds, the dahlias,
there’s a strut, a panache
in the high blue sky.

We should have danced these days
you and I,
burnished arms and cheeks,
dancing in the surf
like sun dazzling aquamarines.

Behind these curtains
this morning moves on
to a lemon chiffon,
summer’s talons grasping
clacking on the glass,
as if clawing for the light, more time

Behind these curtains
you enjoy the season’s dream,
those days you’ve sipped upon,
savory ices at the fair,
echoes of laughter, splashes,
dogs barking,
cards clacking in the spokes,
the woodsmoke of pine on the air.

Last Dances

We forget so many steps
on the roads that brought us here
to the walls,
to the windows,
to the warmest of smiles,
to the sour aftertaste of regrets.

We forget the conversations
in those boozy rooms
of smoke and desperate jazz,
we forget those warm shores roaring with surf,
neath the nourishing rabble of stars.

We misplace the threads
in those tapestries we stitch through other’s lives:
the christenings, weddings, Bat Mitzvahs,
graduations, births - the wakes.

We forget so many notes
in the songs of our lives,
we are singing off key,
tone deaf as our lights wink out,
a vague hum
as the the sky pulls us tight,
stumbling as our souls ask to dance.

Water Baby Blue

His giggles were infectious,
as he ran like a hatchling turtle to the sea.
We seemed to gather like magnetic hens
chuckling, clucking,
grinning satisfaction from our open beaks.

We watched this fledgling run,
a hands high wobbling dash in abandon to the water.
       Would this be another Spitz - another Phelps?
A toothless abandon
a hot mess in a diaper,
belly flopped and laughing
through two 180s and a tight tuck and roll.

We stood there like seals,
a doubting of penguins,
a pod flock rooting for him,
reveling in his energy,
the ebullience of his glee.

Dad plucked him from the chumble
as feet kicked,
as chubby arms flapped high for the wave.
We stood there and cooed,
rooting for this first encounter
as if we had some dog in this fight.

I guess it was the embrace, his innocence,
the ‘no fear’.
We were feet in his shoes.
We would smack the wail,
we would not die , but dance.

We cheered as he sputtered,
spitting, and laughing then…
like a steely eyed porpoise
wary,
cunning,
hunting,
scouring each curl of the waves.