to weave

"Here I am, an old man in a dry month, 

Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain,"

she whispered to the whimpering infant, 

trailing memories behind her likes wisps of clouds,

translucent and strangely opaque,

a path that led from wheelbarrows, 

covered with rain, littering the front yard

to an icebox once possessed of plums.

Gently gliding through histories,

she exited through the hotel door,

flush with youth, 

and followed the slowly unraveling yarn 

out of the labyrinth,

breathless with freedom,

dancing through the remnants

of an Eden that once stretched eastward 

to the royal town built by Grecian kings,

before an apple convinced Adam to tempt Eve,

she uncovers their leaves, 

and gently sifts through pages

of thoughts covered in dust

rife with singular identities

that form an unmistakably 

intricate pattern of seconds

that lead to the minute

when she soothes the now sleeping baby

with the story of an old man.

an·o·dyne

Utterly inundated

sliced orange-green-yellow-white

splashed red

find the inside of a thought

that suggests that texts are not timeless,

the mouth howls insistently

Émissions de Télévision en Français

head in her hands

hope at the tip of fingers

a question - Coleridge or Beckett? - 

searching for Heathcliff and Catherine

covered in false information, misleading steps

cradling Isabella in the palm of her hand,

she reaches for the sea of crawling foam,

Paraît que le bonheur est à portée de main
alors on tend la main et on se retrouve fou,

which every modernist has to some extent inflicted,

happiness within our grasp to be laughed at,

"Everything she said was like a secret voice

speaking straight out of my bones," said Sylvia,

and close by a poet placed a jar in Tennessee,

good joke, je suis folle, but que sera sera

je ne sais pas si je veux ceux-ci ou ceux-là. 

Hold me closer

"Did you know,"
she whispered in his ear,
treading lightly
and speaking softly
so the cat wouldn't know she was awake,
breathing an idea into being,
legs entwined and eyelids fluttering,
broaching the subject
before opening the blinds
and letting in the light of the new day,
"Did you know that happiness
could be waltzing in an airy kitchen
singing Tiny Dancer to a giggling baby,
turning off the synthetic air
and letting in the breeze,
finding contentment in a moment
perfect enough to videotape and remember
when the Tiny Dancer turns 18?"

He smiled.

Nose to nose

she feels the memory of a breath,

the tingling before a brushing of lips,

nose to nose in a dark bar

in a crush of people,

the moment of contact when 

no one can see her,

wrapped in a bubble of sensation 

that includes only the person 

who has placed his hand 

on her lower back, 

electrifying her body,

and her.

Secretly Settled

The lilting wind passes through leaves

in the little cemetery

she can see

through her unblocked window,

a cat weaves and

she feels the reverb--

of a purrrrrrr,

eyes half-closed,

ensconced

in her cocoon,

she pictures it,

and lets the slow knowledge

of contentedness

infuse her very pores.

Impromptu Reeses

yellow lights
1234567
like beacons 
drawing me
forward
I pass Yorkville Wines,
the Duane Reade,
"I put one foot in front of the other /
Whoa oh oh oh"
engulfed in a cloud
of utter contentment
my body fills with the slow
sensation of peace,
my toes touching the floor,
grounded in reality
I feel the weight slough off my chest,
ready to weave in and out 
of sensation and reality,
"May your past be the sound /
of your feet upon the ground"
and the purple shirt wavers in front of me,
we walk 1,2,3, one foot in front of the other
toward the great tower
that houses a small "luxury" apartment
in which we have placed two more walls 
than were originally filled with beams
and added a couple, a roommate, a child's gate
a tabby, a black and white, a pitboxador,
and each contender in the ring slowly vies for space,
but luckily the purple shirt and jean shirt agree
that chocolate on peanut butter is like a Reeses
and is probably the best thing we could be eating right now,
well except for the end of the Indian food - palak paneer to be precise - 
and the everything bagel laden with turkey, 
and perhaps the red peppers dipped in hot sauce and sour cream,
except for those things the impromptu Reeses is the best idea,
because who doesn't like standing half naked in a kitchen
sharing secret midnight snacks with a best friend,
a pocket of "oh yeah hey there!"
away from the other spacers.

in and floating on the bed,
cross legged,
I know that while it may seem 
as though the dream
is far away
in this moment
there is only the peace
of knowing that my brain has slowed,
my body is filled with a knowledge
that I am. I am ma I em me. Not pig latin, 
an amalgamation of letters that
sound alike, but are not alliteration
that make up a word meant to be a first person pronoun, 
Me! it shouts, Je, Yo, and other similar two word claimers, 
we claim ourselves - we hope - and come to continuous realizations
that we can only be our best - as creepy Dollhouse would attest -
we can only be the moment where our soul rejoins our senses,
cause we travel and sometimes can't even out right away,
but life is a fabulous journey, 
so it'd definitely be best 
not to get lost 
if you can possibly help it.
it certainly 
isn't the easiest road. 

"Hello"

An undercurrent of voices 

courses through the apartment, 

drowned out by the running water 

that gargles their meaning.

Hundreds chime in, thrilled

to have a medium 

to convey the words they so want to impart,

"I love you, I miss you, find me, hello!, 

there you are, I knew you would come, 

I have been waiting."

Tears course down my cheeks 

as suddenly as my breath comes, 

Surprising, unconscious, unstoppable,

I put down the onion knife 

and know that these tears do not sting,

but are droplets of uninhibited joy; 

one of the voices has passed through me and he loves me, 

someone I miss daily, 

and he hums to me, "All that matters is happiness" 

and I put my palms out, 

asking for one more breath of "hello" 

before I know my grandfather in all but blood 

has rejoined the cascade of voices 

traveling to touch us ever so softly 

if only we can listen closely.