Part Two

                   Two warm edges have soaked the rags

                   as we peel back this layered fleshy heart.

                   We find two organic fingers there

                   pointing in opposite directions.

                   The coy moon lubricates our walls like a

                   pale slug on her nightly trek west

                   and down, only this time she carries

                   a heavy bag.

                   She will not glow here again, but leaves

                   a glistening trail for us to follow,

                   a scratchy stale beam of words that

                   carries us into our exilic solitudes.

                   You laugh away and I cannot breathe.

                   The pulling tides have become confused.  They ebb

                   when they should flow.  This drought is darker

                   than before, the pavement more torn.

                   There is no easy start from here, the engine

                   has grown cold, the shaken map destroyed.

                   This river flows both toward us and away.                

         

                   We have games to play later in the day,

                   and we’ll push for unrelated victories. 

                   Your dark oracle runs to you like coffee,

                   mine is river water I chase with an empty cup.

                   I’m not allowed your romantic secrets,

                   banished only into mine.  You have become

                   a beautiful golden harvest and I,

                   an ever turning golden key. 

                   9-22-11

Open Window

                   Ours is a house without glass.

                   Soft sentences lie folded on the table,

                   secret thoughts in unlabeled empty jars.

                   We wait for gentle curtains to whisper them.

                   Summer air inhales our dull and open spaces.

                   We channel unspoken words into piano music

                   and morning runs and occasional cleaning.

                   We marry these all together, you and I,

                   in the strength of our waiting.

                   Spirits and lovers with adequate space

                   move forward into one other.  They cover

                   themselves in the evenings with sidewalks

                   and trees, the way good neighbors with dogs

                   walk intently from place to place.

                   I remember the afternoon sounds

                   of your breath when we descended

                   from the highest dune.  We never

                   spilled family words on family words, or

                   sang songs that rattled from the dashboard.

                   We have only stiff solitude now, whipped along

                   in a thick dark breathing river, with no place

                   else to be.  We have big holes in our days

                   filled with mindless blue sketches of the sky.

                   A quiet quarter moon slips promises through

                   square holes in our outer walls, and passes

                   a fading glance at the beautiful red dress

                   you are saving for another kind of day.           

                  

                   8-18-11