This Verse

The great storm is coming:
for days I watch it creep
across the vast ocean
East and everywhere
When you arrive
all howls and beating wings
uprooting every sacred thing
I can only stand
humbled and amazed

I sit, resolved to tell myself
the whole truth of this life
what is ugly and beautiful
sweet and bitter on my tongue
But I do not see clearly
hear as through deep water
too dark to fathom

I launch myself out
across the great silence
relieved for a few hours
of the click-clacking
and tap-tapping
of this ordinary life

Purple is a stranger
exhumed by my demand
for order and routine
Everything must go
with every other thing
but all your shades defy:
violet, lilac, grape
and all that is 
swollen, bruised

Leaves drop here
as your world springs to life
We reach toward the 
horizons of each other
hope someday to press
warm hands in welcome

What a mistake
to ask for so little
expect even less

Today I want to want
so much better than a vast expanse
of unhurried indifference

It is a surprise to finally meet
the ordinariness of a life
in the cutlery drawer and soap dish
I thought it would be more
you said, tucking the sheet
rocking the baby on your shoulder

You, too, might be elated
knowing soon and very soon
you could pack up
give away every dish
glass, pan, and fork
to someone hungry
to make a bare room home

Chocolate peanut butter truffles
rolled between wet palms
incited the tiniest of riots
between ready tongue and palate