We keep gathering
in circles, facing dishes with spoons
and we shuffle our potatoes
back and forth as we sort
memories of long days with short words.

Our work is never finished.
We are light tinged with soil.

Grasping a stone
built for eating makes the grim
dinner by the window
seem a divine intervention.

We taste of underdeveloped joy.

Breaking rough cold waves
– no foam –
thankful for shoulders that swivel
and hips that open wide
to take in the world.

Winter birds don’t whisper over ice.
Everything startles during the hush.

Immersed in his voice
– sharp laugh –
looking at flight askew
but still wishing for a few feathers
to take us a little higher.

We swam in tall grasses,
frolicking freely inside a green bubble
that only grew a warmer amber with time.
So quiet, our cries of the joy of release
were answered by just a few curious crows.
It’s winter now for both of us,
arms beating at a battering wind
as if we could ever make a difference.
I’m extraordinarily content
and the only thing I can figure
is our wanting warms the air around us
and something inside can’t help
but be touched
and carry us through darkness
to where it stays amber and green.

1.

A synthesizer moaned of
vicious isolation and they
were stranded like limpets
after the tide deserted them.

The tide was built from thick,
wavy shag, a joy to toes
seldom spread but rooted.

2.

Salt and pepper static
made dingy walls glisten;
angels seldom visit idle industry.

3.

Minutes wavered to and fro,
formerly proud flags
commiserating about loss of
country or pride,
whatever the semantics.

4.

A stale, cold smell of
morning burned its way
through orange dawn-
a poor herald of beginnings.

The dawn was absolute,
fixed, a menacing squeezed
in fisted sheets.