At Dawn

Early morning light
be gentle as you touch my face,
wake me with a whisper
like a lover who dares not disturb
the peace of the night.

The night has been harsh
and peace was not present
in the breath that entered
that dark place
between the moon and her stars.

If only the moon could protect me
in the fullness of her gentle face
and the stars could whisper the way to freedom
I would make my path with no fear
to morning.

Lover be gentle light as you make your way
to touch my face.
Wake the freedom of love with no fear
with a whisper of peace in the night.
Your breath calls the moon and stars to bless us.

Sweat

A pool of perspiration
gathers, glistens
on the skin of your bare chest
until it overflows like tears
and slides down the dark paths
inscribed under the surface
in order to remember
what must not be forgotten.

It is nearly the time of Solstice
and the sun that marks the passage
of another season and your favor.
Your patience is gone
with the heat of this long journey
around a lifetime of loving
what is impossible to love.

Little blisters bubble
in the cells of your ring finger.
They talk to each other
like giggling school girls
passing rumors of lost love
through the passages
of the day.
A small and tender heart emerges,
beaten from this skin
as if by magic,
but you know the pain
of the choker chain
that reminds you
of your vows to that suffering.

There’s no use pretending
the spirit will ever get something it can’t have
when you’ve marked yourself
in the blood you can’t wash away--
even after the scab has hardened
and the scar is the only remaining mark.

Back at your damp flesh
your mind is brought up short
by that harsh master
and his short leash.

A cloud passes overhead
and you feel the chill
of the opportunity not taken—
of fear of this unknown.
Regret is the ghost that haunts you
like a melanoma waiting to surface.

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.

The End of Love

for Steve Huntington

I’ve studied it—
the turning away of the eyes
at the unpleasantness of life,
wrinkles and blood, pain and thirst,
sound bytes to cover dishonesty with honey,
the denial of inevitable yearning for skin touching skin,
the making peace on the last days that come too soon,
where goodbye is too much
and see you soon is not enough
to stop the heart from breaking.

Once you told me,
in a moment of confession,
about a small truth that had come to you.
You apologized for being too forward
with the lack of God between us
by placing three small words
in my hands.

“We all die.” you said.

Just like that.
And then,
you shook your fist
at the heavens,
your voice trembling
at the boldness
of your anger.

“And another thing,” you said,
“I want this last year back.”

Just like that.

Just like that.

I watched you in that lesson
like my life depended on laughter and kindness,
on outrage and justice,
on black and white—
on unconditional love.

Just like that,
you opened the door
I am always afraid to walk through—
opened it and walked right toward
the end of love—
just like it was any other day,
like all the other days before this one
with a See ya. or Bye.
except this time you really meant it.

Now when I go back to my desk,
my pen in hand,
my heart filled with everything,
I can only write the endings
that leave us lonely, but filled
with grateful and abundant feasts of love.

It is here, at this table,
where I will meet you again,
share a story
about something that matters,
look each other in the eyes without regret,
hearts satisfied at knowing
the embrace of this friendship.

Delivered by Angels

Before the birds of morning
you woke me from my sleep—
entered through the window
of a dream—
climbed through the gnarled forest of my hair
and over the desert of my untouched skin
to the place that glows heavy with blood
and the seeds of children
and other men once grew briefly
and sometimes flowered.

At the sill you gripped the edge of the dream,
announced yourself the new keeper of the garden,
advised this mistress
we must plant now
before it is too late to harvest
the abundant bounty
that comes after the moon
and before the heat of full summer.

You pulled yourself with strong arms
into the embrace of my body,
curled yourself perfectly between my legs
and whispered the secret you’d finally found
of balancing black and white,
night and broad daylight,
hot and the icy cold of alone,
fire and water,
deafening silence and the mercy of birdsong.

I drifted along on the incoming tide that is you--
wild roses and sea grasses reminding me
it is impossible to ignore destiny or truth
when he comes before dawn in a dream,
lighting the way when everything else
is so dark.

The gown of my sleeping self is wet
with the dew of your sweetest kisses.
In this place of kindness I smile for the first time in days
and count myself lucky with each minute you follow me
toward the starry promise of another hour of dreaming.

I gladly recline on the cool of fresh sheets
where night air delivers comfort
through the new green of maple
and purple wind chimes of twilight.
I exhale and surrender to the ways
angels deliver their most holy gifts.

Anniversary

The last day I saw you,
picked you up outside a restaurant we never ate in—
the place we never had the chance to order wine
or share a sweet dessert—
never holding hands across the table
like lovers do,
you only climbed into my old rusty car
out of the gray rain and said,
guilty without looking at me,
“You can turn right here.”

On the last day I saw you
we drove to a lake I’d never seen,
a water dark with spring
near an empty playground
and looked at each other
a long time until the silence
required payment.
We dug deep into our pockets
to find the words we’d said about the end
so many times.
I could feel the syllables crawl
out of the back of my ache
and I hated myself for not knowing
how to break the rules—
jump over the fence
and dive into the dangerous water
and live.

Instead, I was the good girl
who knew not
how to forget the boundaries
that always threaten to damage
and tear apart the invisible cloth
of someone else’s will—
The velvet hood
before the noose
taking my breath away.

On the last day
when you rested your hand
on my heart,
released my spirit
like a frightened bird
into the empty sky
with no where to land,
I lost everything

Your kindness still vibrates
in the places on my face
where you touched me
with your lips
and your wisest eyes.

Your smell of soap
and cinnamon evaporates
with the sweat of this much loss.

Now I wander through a graveyard of last days
shaking the bones of the body
where you will never live
and I cannot endure
this broken music
of nothing.

Debt

The statement arrived
when I least expected it
just as it does every time.

Late, early
or right on the mark,
I am shocked at the accounting
that unfolds like paper
from an envelope
I am rarely pleased
to see sitting before me.

The balance is nearly always
negative numbers these days—
deposits never covering the withdrawals.

The gifts of kindness
become the childish game of take away
that leaves the hands empty with a jerk of greed.
The heart is turned inside out
in disbelief at the lack that is left
by such neglect.

Coins of anger and disappointment pile carelessly
in the corner of the vault that was once filled
with laughter and hope for wealth
overflowing with unconditional love.

The robbery was silent
and subtle as summer
slipping into fall—
frost taking the flowers of the field
with sparkling brilliance
only to wilt and blacken
into the memory of color.

My purse is empty again tonight
with no prospect of the strength
necessary to let me work
to plant the seeds of a new crop.

I am a beggar at the side of the road.
My eyes dare not look into the face of the stranger.
I cannot stand the pity I might find there.

I can only thrust my cup forward
and pray for mercy and the sound
of ringing metal like the gong
waking me from my sleep.