Long Ago

Long ago

when it felt like
the day was young
every morning

the sun would rise
on a world of
possibilities

and I would wake up
smiling and you
would be there beside me

with an arm to keep
me there a little
longer.

Starry Night on the Rhone

The sky above, the earth below
The city stirs, the river flows.
We walk at night that we may see
The stars and know we’re not alone,

That we may breathe a different air
And walk along a quiet shore,
Stand silent where the river laps
Up to our feet.

The earth is black, the sky is blue.
The river bends a mirrored view
Of city lights and stars familiar,
Heaven down and shore to shore.

We meet the night. We take the time
To be together, you and I,
Across the river, in between
The city and a giant sky.

We breathe the sky and feel the earth
And find our place beneath the stars,
Your arm in mine and mine in yours.
The night is ours.

Far and Away

I look into your eyes
and in them find your heart
full of the sorrow
of far and away.

Far, the color of your eyes
and the story of a journey
stretching out to the horizon
with a word approaching fear
but incomplete:
far, the distance of uncertain,
like measuring a mountain
with the space and separation
between near and disappeared;
far, the feeling
between effort and defeat.

And then away,
another story of
a day after the journey
is over with an order
of divorce:
away, the echo of forever
in the opposite direction,
with the posture and position
of a disconnecting turn;
away, the feeling
of rejection and remorse.

I want to see
the distance and direction,
the echo and order
of fear and always
in your eyes,
let them tell their stories,
feel them fill my heart
with the sorrow
of far and away.

She Folds My Clothes

       1

She folds my clothes,
the tailored rags
once piled in the dirt and
smell of days,
      which is to say
      she picks them up
      and separates them, cleans
      them, load by load,

these that I call
my own, not of
my soul, but nearly so:
my second skin,
      my shield from sin,
      my covering
      and saving from
      all elements and eyes,

weekly redeemed
by this routine
of flattening and
giving shape to what
      was without form
      and would remain,
      if not for this,
      a wrinkled pile of rags,

if not for one
who takes the task
of caring for me, more
than I deserve
      who tells me so,
      but knows that talk
      is cheap and love’s a chore.
      She folds my clothes.



  







 
         2

She folds my clothes.
I give her all
my threadbare socks and
dirty underwear,
      which is to say
      I leave them on
      the floor of lower standards,
      and forget

they are my own,
my stains, my sweat
and toil, my respons-
ibility,
      and I should be
      ashamed of der-
      ilictions, but I play
      the fool instead,

weekly relieved
of turning life
around, restoring order
to a world
      that needs reform,
      and even in
      the time it takes to write
      this silly poem,

she is the one
who does it all,
and I’m the one who
doesn’t tell her so;
      my love is cheap,
      and finding words
      is work.  And while I write,
      she folds my clothes.