You awake from a sound sleep or a good enough date with a perfectly nice person and say to yourself: I wasn't thinking I wasn't feeling You appear at my door a little breathless hopeful and afraid not knowing if I can forgive your error And I say
Lost
What have I lost but the hope you might be someone other than you are?
Convince Me
I'm going to need a talking to a good one plenty of sweet words soft sounds and cold hard proof that it is in my best interest to love you again
All This Life
truth is always a friend though she often stings as she washes your wounds applies ointment and fresh gauze tells you to stop pushing look where you are going slow down and take a breath she wants life for you all this life
Truth
Is there a lie at the heart of your life beating there so long you believe it? You are afraid to look convinced that seeing and speaking it will be the death of you This is true Because once you know that you could be loved you will be loved You will never be the same That will be the only truth you can live
First published in Visions II (Spring 2021)
Soul
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
Emily Dickinson
In the beginning I thought the whispering of secrets gave soul and depth and I should tell you everything, always. I didn't want to stand on my own, so I left my days ajar thinking you might someday ready yourself and step up to be with me, welcome me into your thoughts the way I brought you, ecstatic into the gentle rhythm of my experience.
What I Wish
I ride home tonight laugh-kissed and weary after poetry with friends There you are at my door waiting patiently to persuade I'm sorry I'm late, you say It took me a lifetime to get here
Your Name
I don't remember your name not the whole of it just the given and the warmth of our two hands, holding Everyone else slept while we shared words now forgotten I have merely this trace just two hands, holding
Waking
What life is this eager to live in, through you? As you consent to the requisition of your bones conscription of your breath, blood What will, at last, awake into the world?
Forgiving God
Forgiving you comes most easily when I dress you as a man: blue jeans, Birkenstocks a gray Henley with small buttons Where have you been? You seem to say so little expect so much I've been heartbroken ill-used and lonely so long The g-d of forgiveness they call you I get it: when it comes to you I've got a lot of forgiving to do
This Verse 