The disappointments didn’t come

hard and fast. They rolled like

a Spanish “R,” long and smooth.

Chasing the ice-cream truck,

being locked out of the funhouse,

being the second or third choice

for everyone I’ve ever met…

There’s a place for me and it’s

the wise-cracking sidekick

that you don’t mind disappearing

in the third act. I’m the heroine’s

plucky, tragic friend.

Cute and dismissed.

It’s ok; I tracked Venus and Vega

with my rickety telescope tonight

and we’re all very, very small.

Light barely penetrates

moss by the side door

 

The locks are loose

after so many years of jiggling

 

A new fire is waiting

near the wall- if we’re not too tired

 

Two eggs sit untended, fallen from nests

now even snakes can’t be bothered

 

I hope I don’t forget to look again

when the lilies-of-the-valley push through

 

I’ve become old and clumsy

and unsteady in new ways

 

The day was full of wind and laughing

but there was a great big hole without you

 

Evening brought a cool sheen

to cover any green left of the day

Unexpected –

unfolding long limbs into flight

patterns, pausing only to laugh

before setting sights somewhere

just beyond the sun.

He shines enough

to make a pocket of space

seem like home

for a little while.

Equations roll off his tongue

and they sound like heroic sighs

after the world has been saved,

even when the landscape has exploded

leaving us holding pieces of ourselves.

He glides quietly

yet firmly through to tomorrow

plundering memories

then tossing them

into stories to be carried away.