The Spot Marked X
The spot marked X
leaves me
hardworking backwards,
searching for the crumbs
my solution left behind
rewinding
from the answer
to the question.
You make me believe in the
already Imagined.
You make me believe
in the third eye
of
my blind faith.
Words Hung Out To Dry
Words hung out to dry
ripple,
resonate,
free
of haste.
The telling
that longs to be damp and sweet.
always sweet,
finds refuge in a pocket of delay,
where winds tend patient verse
and
the clean scent of meaning
lingers on.
(Your love)before the bloom
Early magnolias perch like small birds
fill the trees in perfect stance.
(the strength of hardwood on which to root)
Still ornaments
ease my gaze across the weald.
For to see them fly
would soothe this promise of fade,
certain to evolve
from this promise of love
so new and kind and pink.
With Holding
I dreamt I rifled through your wallet.
By morning I knew it was your heart.
Looking for the writing
I call pieces of my soul,
you caught me
so I stopped before finding none.
I dreamt you slept in your black wool suit,
pleated here and there into tiny accordions,
set in
like your mood,
like the decision you made
to retreat from my family.
I dreamt my father asked to shake your hand when he stopped by from the dead.
(Please) I begged, so you did.
I dreamt we walked beneath a vaulted sky.
We came for art
but the walls were bare.
You took
my hand
but you never held it.
She Keeps Perfect Time
The clock resting red-eyed and the end of waiting.
Illuminated midnight.
Moving hands
caress a face
as forgiveness frees long away years.
Suspended, wondering
(where is memory?)
The journey from a state of mind to a state of grace
when
you take me as I am,
Weightless, paused in relativity
thoughtful
(without numbers)
Delirious in some philosophy of the impossible
Till somewhere, a glass sifts particles of a borrowed reward
and the clock re-counts in slumber
(our collective dream)
tick, tick, tick.
Things My Father Gave Me
Second-hand smoke.
My grandmother’s name.
Jet black hair.
His eyes in my mirror.
Dusty, packed-away Greek.
Conversational fear.
Bits of gold charm.
My first look at a gun.
The memory of burning autumn.
A chance encounter with a magnolia tree.
Uninvited night.
The first floor.
Memory’s broken piece.