Post-news game show battles
in the living room
with the fan pushing summer air
around the clues.

It’s a leisurely break
from the fatigue
of a quiet madness
of middle age.

My daughter is galavanting
in the county with her girls
as my son weighs retirement
options for his first real job.

Time is slipping away
but it’s right there
on a moth’s wing
at my window screen.

Cardigan brigade
of secretaries in summer,
restocking the candy jars
like ammunition
before a hungry calendar

Little-known yearnings
of quiet time-keepers
become shaped like
mythical fruits that fly
just above the clouds

Love stories living inside
someone old enough
to understand and disregard
irony would be funny
if not for the heartbreak

My body barely recognizes
danger, unmoved as the shape
of trees is like an echo of an old
story- mine, maybe but bigger
and startling like a harvest moon
when you’ve lost track of time.

I don’t make bargains
but freely give pieces of myself
and don’t forget touch.
Especially when it’s moonlight.

Wondering how high we can climb
takes up a lot of my thoughts,
whether we could find our way
back or even if we would want to.

I think I can see further across miles
now than when my eyesight was better, and
I was distracted by what was in front of me.

I follow my senses, which aren’t reasonable
and I feel currents on the air and water
as if I’m made of bendable stuff.

We bend together when we need
the same view.

I want to show you the hemlocks,
the ferns, the wild honeysuckle.
I know you’ve seen them before
but we’ve not seen them together.

Clips roll past, not fast enough
to be dismissed but not long enough
to memorize every eyelash or hip shimmy.
She is all that is feminine, a treasure,
removed yet familiar.

People venerate her walk
but I see her hunched at the dinner table,
listening to a story, almost like me,
except of course she is much better.

She keeps popping up lately- a memory,
story, photo – and I feel I was there,
not reincarnated or a bystander,
but maybe the odd bird
that flew by or perched just long enough
to see her shiny baubles
and how she cried most nights.

Hurt again and again, it is inevitable
we forget ourselves for a moment,
flying high at some kind words
or a bit of attention, erroneously
thinking we are saved.

I can sit hunched at dinner
while stories swirl about, finding
shiny baubles to cover tears of old hurts.
I would rather be held;
that is the secret behind shuttered eyes.