The street was narrower
than I had imagined.
Brighter. There were people
bustling at the crosswalks
in their suits and trendy dresses.
A few loafers loitered on stoops.
We don’t have stoops in the country.
We have porches. And crickets.
But there were stoops and taxis
and museums and weird fried foods
at each corner. And there were
gaudy scarves for sale on the piss sidewalk
and a few trees encased in concrete.
I had imagined this neighborhood
many times from books and movies,
grittier, darker, more sparse
and glamorous. It was early 1990’s
and terror was a movie and not yet
a way of life. I had years of daydreams
ahead of me, a galaxy-full in my own head.
But this street was real
and live and when I walked back
and forth on it a few times, I saw it
for the gem it was, shining
not in technicolor but in sunshine.

The touch was familiar
but there was a new light;
we had been looking far
into the distance for too long
and our focus inward had become
blurred, but the light was persistent
in its exploration of our details.
Our emotions were transcribed
-like reading veins on a leaf.
Long-term effects of light
and touch remain inconclusive.
Further study required.

Where have we been, that a season
has almost past with our barely noticing
the cold or the shifts in wind?
Does time hide with the sun?
Have the trees been talking?
Did ice ever have a chance with our heat?

I vaguely notice a tilted moon
or a morning with little birdsong
but being so full of you,
I am lacking nothing important.

Swallowed a moon and yet
felt light as a feather
between rows and rows
of watchful crickets.

The path was worn
and the brambles high
like a happy trapping
inside a sleepy wood.

We fit like a framed portrait
of a timeless embrace
with winter stars
or summer lightning.

His mountain moves very slowly;
he notices changes in light
and imagines it’s their dancing
that’s caused the shift

He tells her all the things
she never knew she needed
to hear but wanted to believe-
and flowers bloomed in snow

They were drawn from the same
river with unquiet waters
and it took autumn trees
to tear open their story anew.