It’s a quiet destruction
she keeps to herself
which nobody notices
because of the windstorm.

There’s no safe way to articulate
desire when superimposed
over an existing portrait
without losing some definition.

The wind shapes the hills
while she sits somewhat still,
feeling like a sand mandala
blown across burgeoning winter.

Marking time with mechanicals
is an exercise in the superfluous.
River rocks know etchings of real time,
wind and water wearing away
anything from yesterday.

I like to stand on the hill
with the wind sweeping
along my body, through my hair,
imagining my yesterday
worn away.

Things change rapidly
while I stand still
and let the wind
take the worry of time
somewhere else.

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.