June

Have you noticed June
has come to us too soon
in a year where fireflies freeze
and are lightning for daisies
in a field I will never walk?

I catch you peeking through my window tonight
like a common boy who wants to see lace
touch soft skin and watch a lonely woman
remove private garments like layers of defense
until she is a vulnerable girl
ready to cry—sob in your arms.

You have no idea how to comfort me—
I am too much light for you to catch
in your hands.
I am stars and all water
leaking through your panicked fingers--
lost to the wide salty ocean and darkening sky.

Oh love,
if you only knew enough
to bring a simple child’s bucket
to the places where I always escape
you would capture your heart
full of abandoned, glittering treasure.

Instead, I must forgive you again for your fear
and your inability to turn away. . . .avert your eyes
from the naked beauty of truth
and the happiness that has come
to cover the outline
of my body.

I gather armfuls of white petals
and place them gently on your threshold
before dawn daring you to do the right thing
and kiss me. . . .abandon your post
at the door of everything proper
and enter into the circle of gold and spirit—
forget where the end of hello begins
and remember farewell is vocabulary
in a dialect we never knew.