Poetic License

Aug
27th

Wed

5th Avenue, 2:25 pm

I’m sitting

Across the street

across time

so far removed

from that cold night

I can still feel the snow

that rose over the tops of my boots

to soak my socks through

but I paid it no mind

Red wine made things warm again

Between us

Years have passed

and the street is still the same

Except for the gentle summer breeze

Stirring memory, stirring time

I can feel you here with me laughing

I can smell the wet wool of your scarf

and taste the acid of fermented grape on your lip

Soon it will be winter again-

another year gone

another year without you

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Jul
14th

Mon

Make this go away

I can’t

say anything to change

What’s left

I see you and I turn

Away from

your sad eyes.

If it hurts you less

I can’t

say anything to change

Your stance

so simply I’ll go on

Away from

this lost time.

I’m so sorry now

I can’t

take back the words I said

Last night

Just kiss me say

Goodbye for now

and walk away.

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Jul
8th

Tue

Sounds Like

*bleh. i can’t make it keep the formatting. hopefully you’ll get it.

plip
l
o
drip
r
o
p

Rain falls on top of

waterfalls on top of

water.

splish
p
l
a
s
h

pl
un
k, splash

Thunder sounds on top of

sunshine on top of

sons (and daughters.)

And here all are happily, merrily

And here are all the spontaneous reveries

drip

plippity plip

Goes the rain

goes the rain

goes.

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Jun
19th

Thu

It Was Raining, and…

There was trash in the streets.

Cold sad dark huddled figures on a train.

Wet shoes on my feet.

Rhythmic tapping on the window pane.

Around and around all the city moved.

All the city twisted up like broken umbrellas.

And I, in it, felt alive.

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May
13th

Tue

Detrius (6:31 p.m.)

Brooklyn bound #3 train.

One tube chapstick—winter sport

Double Bubble wrapper

Toothpick-used

Pink Starburst wrapper-origami folded

Snickers wrapper

Sticky unidentified substance

(spanning the length of two seats)

Empty plastic Pepsi bottle-of substance?

Young people. Old.

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May
10th

Sat

On Starting Over In Kenmare Square

This was written in 2005…reconciliation is God’s greatest gift.

In shared faith a discovery
over lattes with a side of honesty
with the love of a family
much wiser than we could ever be
And in the moments of loneliness
despairing not, remembering
silence does not always mean distance
and regret is nothing more
than lack of faith
in the One who has written the entire story
of a life we’ve yet to even imagine

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Saturated

She does not yet know how to navigate

the delicate space between the words that leave the lips

and the air that tranports them in one ear…

Listening halfway, her focus moves to his lips, his nose

the creases around the mouth that have always been there

though just beyond her view. She searches his eyes for a sign

and sees a shifting of view—a nervous seeking, an awkward glance

Whether it is good or bad she cannot say

Her mind shifts back to catch the round sounds still emerging

she listens, laughs, smiles

Feels the damp rain that has seeped into her shoes

Her mouth opens and closes, then opens again

Her mind is saturated, her voice empty

And they go into the night, saying nothing at all

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Apr
4th

Fri

*an excerpt from something i am working on.

There are no windows on the exterior of the home, lending a mystery to what might lie behind the heavy oak doors. It seemed a mechanism to keep others from looking in, but all that time I think it we were the ones who never really wanted to look out. Perhaps it is why sometimes, late at night, I feel the need to get up and open the door or the window to let light and life and noise in.
I wish that I could go inside and see what the house is like now. We actually know the people who bought it from us—this is a small place, after all, and not many people leave. But they are away for the holiday, and so I close my eyes and picture it as it used to be. Inside, cold orange-brown tiles make their way around a glass-enclosed atrium whose glass roof floods the space with sunlight during the day. Each room in the house is partitioned off the hallways by sliding wood doors, with all the bedrooms on one side and the living areas on the other. As hot as it was outside, we never needed air conditioning. During the day my mother kept the curtains over the sliding glass doors to the atrium pulled shut so that the house stayed cool. I would pull them aside briefly to cross through the damp and sunny space by opening the sliding glass door directly opposite my bedroom. It always closed with a reassuring thump behind me, sealing me into a giant terrarium. I would close my eyes, inhaling the scent of wet, musty earth. Oftentimes I made my way quickly to the opposite side to let myself into the kitchen or living room. Sometimes, though, I let my bare feet linger in the moist dirt while I searched for a frog, or hid among the tall foliage and waited to scare my sister. There were also times that I would simply hover at the corner of the large indoor backyard and watch my father water the plants until he brought me out of hiding with a playful flick of the garden hose. Those were the times that I felt the most connected to my family-when we were enclosed in our own little world.

***
My favorite place in the house was my father’s study. It smelled of him—pipe tobacco and Old Spice. I would grab an old book filled with words I could not possibly understand and lie on my stomach under his desk feeling the thin pages turn beneath my fingers. Or I’d lose myself in the pages of National Geographic magazine, looking at photo after photo of full-bellied African babies and close-ups of sea urchins. My father never chased me out but I knew I had to remain still and silent if I wanted to stay. That is how we still exist-still, and silent. It is peaceful. I don’t want for more. I am afraid that if we really started talking I would ask him about those things I came here to forget and that he will have forgotten them already or look at me in that way that tells me that we should go on as if we had never broken our silence at all.

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Mar
30th

Sun

Hospital Corners

Our bed is cleanly made

with fresh white sheets tucked into hospital corners.

It still seems like our bed

though for some time now you have been gone.

When we first began I resisted

the stringent way you pulled and pushed and folded

creasing and tucking the sheets with military precision.

“This is too antiseptic,” I said. “This is clinical.”

“Your way is messy,” you said. “Things are undone.”

All I wanted was to pull the sheet up and let it fall

as if it had a place it wanted to go

and I wanted to let it go

let it all go.

I have been making our bed with hospital corners

ever since you left—

the taut fold of cotton that felt so restrictive

is somehow a comfort now.

The way the sheets hug the mattress, firm

and the crease of each precise fold has been made

so many times it is ingrained in the fabric.

Even when fresh from the laundry

they need little guidance from my hand to go

forward, under, over.

Push, pull, pinch, tuck.

I keep this routine up

hoping and waiting.

I keep making our bed with hospital corners

ever since you left.

I cannot watch the news for fear of seeing you there

in every other soldier’s eye you are reflected.

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Mar
7th

Fri

Hm. That’s weird.

Being with you

suddenly feels like

being near the sun on a cold day.

All my friends say

your eyes light up when you see me—

but I wonder if it isn’t just the reflection

of the way I see you now.

Who knows where thoughts come from?

They just appear, as you have

clearer in my field of vision

tell me now, please…

how do I look to you?

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