Captivating

I know the curves of your face

I know the crinkle in your eye when you blink out the sunlight and try to picture my hands reaching out for you

I know the sway in your walk that you think looks like a man’s stride

I know the pain and the sting and the doubt that you hold inside

I know the laugh in your heart and the longing for something a little more like a home

I know the hearts in your hands who choose only in you to confide

In darkness and grey skies and times when no one else sees

You see their hearts and you set their hearts free

I see the loneliness left in you after they fly

I see the tears you think no one can see you cry

I see the frustration, the condemnation, your constipation, screwing up rhythms sticking and looping and jabbing

I was there.

Do you think you can enchant me?

Ah, you know the answer.

You captivate me.

And what else?

What else, my dear?

Eternity.  Believe me. 

Creamer

The creamer swirls in a wistful way

Raindrops close out a lonely day

And we sit here staring

Wishing we were daring

We could sit here like we’re doing

Elbows sticky with the last persons drink

We could watch the rainfall still

Steam up the window and breathe

Or unbuckle the seatbelts

Step out of these doors

Might we run

Out into to the soaking parking lot and

Dance in the downpour

Might we run

Into each other's arms and

Never leave again

Room for three

There is always room for me

in your hand-me-down furnished,

toy-strewn living room.

Tea on the stove,

pipe smoke residue in the cushions,

baby sleeping in the next room

with bare feet.

No need for bright lights,

we know each others faces.

I can see your silly grin in your voice.

We rhetoricize the future

and the world outside

this dark womb.

Lying on this couch, across from you,

I’m not sure anything else exists.

I am discovering myself in your family room.

Lichen

Rain shudders down in dewy drops as sparrows light on branches

Trees low over and bright verdant vines continue to climb

Gray fog casts a blue darkness over my forest

As lichen gently clutches the cedar stumps

And I am grateful

With each step a patch of moss bears my footprint

With each glance my eyes rest on a fertile rotting limb

With each breath I catch the scent of evergreen and must

With each word the sound dissipates into the wind

And I am grateful