AFFAIRS

you are the luck of my life
whether deep laughter, mouths wide
familiar jaws and teeth exhibited
or the slow choke of tears, eyes welled

I lean toward your confidence
welcome the sturdy warmth

your voices settle my stomach
clear the air
your handwriting relaxes me
I focus inward

without such connections
I would stagger
falter with each sentence
nothing would make sense

and the closest I would get
to inside of myself
would be a tour through
my walk-in closet

there is safety in the company we keep
it keeps me alive, thank you

at the beginning there was the longer line
which traveled through the arms

where they lightly touched shoulder to elbow
on the arm rest and in the dark

conversation went like a voyage
like sibling revelry, familiar and new at once

over coffee, squid salad, and something
pureed with cream, vellutata

couplets arose as if hidden in wait
for a muse or even amusement

for that elan akin to ripples on water
the overtone series extended into a void

her hand on the center of his back
just for a moment before descending

toward the first kiss gently shared
as easily as talk of habitual anxiety or the word loquacious

death pictures disrupt
lively wax & wane
of what remains between voids

we, the interstices
this bridge from girls
to women

through loves and losses
across spaces
what death removes

or birth intrudes
nothing erases
trust ensues

hope engendered
by friend

languages are ending
melted into each other
for useful reasons; shared
bread, the direction of wind
how close to build the lean-to

and already there’s no word
for the nuance of green
out the back window, no
absolute way to show a spider-
web hung between the spindly
twigs of the hawthorn, tiny pearls
of water on each strand juxtaposed
with the red berries of late fall

and hardly any way to convey
how much I love you with words

sometimes I wake-up
at odd hours, disarmed
by the alarm of a spy toy
or the tick of battery
operated clocks
and question the light
in my mind

as long as it took
to learn how to breathe
from the first
desperate squawk
to the deliberate
inhale of Tai Chi
there was always
that same light

and now, with my bra
coming out of my sleeve
slight-of-hand modesty
in an ocean of new passion
breath seems easy
I exhale
relish the fall

I feel like I owe you an apology
maybe it’s really supposed to be
a phone call conversation
or a poem but

this insistent rain seems to be crowding
us out of the parks
insinuating its dismal gray patter across
my low back

everyday tasks and vision quests have kept
the neurotransmitter swirls busy on the inside
parallel play with weather
a fine way to ride the orb

I catch your smile now
and wonder where the cat has hidden
must be time for warmer socks here
my cold feet wriggle as I sign-off

At my desk in my NEW office I can see the sky shifting into dusk
the clouds backlit in a peach glow hover over your part of town
one building or another peers across the tree line toward me

I imagine your chin lifted, eyes cast downward through prismatic lenses
a dense legal document displayed on your glowing screen

Here the quiet of evening descends and I send you a quick message
flicker through the thick language of your argument for a brief interlude
to let you know I love you across this varied palette we call sky