(haiku: sunday)

(that one)

i’ll never trust a
woman with an unchanging
smile. ah, not again.

(without question)

i think i have it.
or i think ive had it for
far, far too long now.

(outside an elevator at 9am)

how can i tell her
i don’t see the light, just an
ordinary cloud?

(no)

our fingers, creased and
tinged by long-tuned strings. can we,
will we, once again?

(it wasn’t better)

she was the fire and
the light. i simply flickered
once. no. if at all.

(haiku wednesday: fluster)

(seriously?)

oh, third street couple.
blue jean pocketed hands don’t
go out of style, eh?

(playtime)

remember the bright,
cascading joy at the end
of the recess line?

(professional horoscopes)

dear weather channel:
i feel cloudy, but cannot
remember the rain.

(midnight)

my weapon of choice?
infinitesimal legos
on a woven rug.

(on a sunday)

(yes)

did you imagine
this night would outlive us? at
least i dared the stars.

(fewer naps, i suppose)

now i see. i have
not left enough to leave a
more-than-cloudy sigh.

(ah, that night)

as we flail, soaked and
worn, the music fills what our
tiny missives won’t.

wild persimmon

It was in a dream, I think, where her mouth was a wild persimmon. It grew by a shimmering stream, near the wetland ferns.

Who could wait?

But it was ripe, right, fleshy, full – this one.

I've been here before, down the slopping hill below the earthen levee. I've walked these now-concrete-covered trails in the months after the yellow jackets stop flying. Looking, always looking, hands full before I ever start. How many have I dropped just to snatch another? Too many, I think.

Ah, this is different, this full-grown dream. (It always is, this one). This one sends me back, back to windows fogged, raining, at the lock and dam.

(haiku: things i’ve learned)

(a weekend lesson)

nos unspoken, still.
the question hanging from a
fingers tip. i see.

(vindictive dusters: pt3)

---

Someone – and let’s assume it wasn’t Anya – had strewn scented pine cones throughout her sponsored apartment. Floor grates and bookshelves and piles of perfectly folded kitchen towels masked by industrial cinnamon. Even her dust smelled aggressively delicious.

She was seated in the kitchen, a solitary vine winding its way towards scarce, slatted sunlight behind her. Anya casually cocked her head and gently fingered the silver pebble in her right ear. She’d clearly plagiarized the look.

“White creeping thyme,” Anya blurted. “It reminds me of the concrete stepping stones outside the church.”

“The one where we parked?”

“Of course.  Do you remember the hand-painted sign? I’ve never seen such brilliant whites and blacks.”

“It was so dusty – dry red clay riding the wind. Was it, what, early fall?”

“Remember?  I was wearing your gray sweater. The one you gave me the first night behind my parent’s house.”

“Definitely remember the look on your sister’s face when we came back in.”

“Anyway.  I still think I heard ‘In the Garden’ coming from the church that morning.”

Anya shifted, lips parted, ear untouched. She remembers what I can’t – the trebled plink of a church piano long past tuning, the lone woman’s longing voice meant for someone else. She quotes, from a place I’d never seen, “I’d stay in the garden with him / though the night around me be falling / but he bids me go through the voice of woe.”

“I just remember the wind.”

---

(vindictive dusters: pt2)

This is why I write about Anya – the night I felt the weight of her hand on my sweatered arm. It was a simple gesture, I remind myself, not that, the other thing. But it lingered, resting a little longer than the conversations or the convictions that led us there.

Oh, Anya, I felt absolutely nothing for the first time.

---

It all started simply enough, if one can call a missionary date simple. Drive, park, knock, drive, park, door, gaze, order, wait, proselytize. Happens all the time, at least it does now.

“I finished my assessment last night.”

(Why did I start here, not Philemon or Hosea – the slave he didn’t want or the love he couldn’t leave?)

“And?”

“………”

(What else could I say?)

“Witness A., have you ever held on to something, really held?”

(No.)

“………”

“………when this life of firsts becomes nexts and lasts.”

“………”