)))wind
unravels fingers—
tones pores which gasp as sudden cold
sneaks up on you like an icicle
down your back, between your breasts
stamps a crescent moon on your forehead
as wrinkles huddle in its gusts
skin dances, its electricity pungent
in the snap of so much air
fingers search for you
your furred belly
announcing its softness
into my waiting hands
Now You See It, Now You Don’t
There is a pool where everyone can drink,
liquid sliding down throats like cool tea
on a hot porch--
eyes glisten in half-light
as pinks and oranges give up the battle against darkening sky—
It can ease the whocha and whatcha of life—
at least for a while, but stay too long
and the pool shrouds you
in the woven hair of others
whose time has come and gone--
crumpled into dust on some bench
under stars that were once too hot.
We lie in the grass above—
the hills tendering their forgiveness
one star at a time as we lose our names
among falling petals—
pinks and purples clinging to their scent—
until the pressure of our hands releases it
and thirsty skin drinks.
A Man Stops The Clocks
My time at Barnhouse & Timble stopped
one afternoon when spring’s bright light
leapt off marble columns in a tilt-a-whirl ---
time fell away—
a crazy man with a gun, a judge, two attorneys,
and a soon-to-be ex-wife –the gunman looking to make her
an ex-wife, lickety-split—
Stood next to her, is all I did—
that and calling a spade a spade –
maybe he was drunk that day, but that
is granting an awful lot of benefit-of-the-doubt.
More likely, it was a grinding hate that unwinds clocks,
turns a man inside out.
Either way, a gun is a gun,
especially when loaded and handled
by a man wearing his innards as a suit.
The sun glinting off that gun pointed in my general direction—
the slowing tick of the clock, tears rolling down his face—
tears as he pulled the trigger—and the breath
that whooshed out so fast I didn’t feel it—not at first.
Watched red cover white marble, slowly pooling,
an ambulance on its way,
turning inside out right there on the floor.
They got divorced alright—later that year.
Same judge, but no more appearances from the husband.
They put a straitjacket on him to keep his innards contained.
He’s jacketed still.
On quiet days, I still hear that whoosh—
so loud, it drowns out everything else,
takes my pen away and stoppers up all the words inside—
just me and him, and his tears as I struggle for air.
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