The sun doesn’t discriminate
between my lawn and my neighbor’s.
Trees bend
across time zones.
Stone is constant
until mighty winds do their slow dance,
taking away pieces
tasting of eons
to far-flung corners of lonesome fields
and busy crosswalks.
Birdsong remains ever true.
Night always follows day.

I keep making mistakes,
like feeling I must explain
colors I see
against the same stone wall
each day,
or being afraid of the alone,
or believing
lost is unimportant.

I see my own spectrum
and even when I don’t move,
I am lost
and it is important.

this is how my distraction
feels, like real life in a jelly;
sticky and vibrant
inside a hand-bowl
like memories seeping through
(a heathen sieve)
with strains of bells
from far away angels
reminding me
of waterfalls’ treachery
and sandman’s lechery
before I come to,
and face Tuesday

I am not iron or sugar
but the sweetness of Greyhound diesel
is one of my base notes
(there is something of Hitchcock,
in an unsettling aura beneath the veneer)
and if we were to dance,
I think time would seem superfluous
to all invention or words.

I thought I forgot how to move freely…
but I just had to look back again,
to the night
(almost thirty years ago now!)
when we jumped off the boardwalk
and felt warm sand
beneath our toes

running until we reached cool ocean spray
-the foam shined like diamonds in moonlight
reminding me
of a highway that led to freedom;
we were suburban rebels, with little cause,
(giggling girls parading as jaded women)

she was fragile and ethereal,
drawing the world in swirls
and she watched as I became
a gyrating gypsy in the surf,
dancing to my own song
(which echoed Creedence and Floyd)

it was unequivocal magic,
dancing at the ocean’s edge

I was sixteen
and didn’t know how rare those moments are
when we touch something
beyond our sense and understanding,
past where love ends
and questions begin
to a place of acceptance