i am the girl
who made you laugh
about snow on my windshield
blanket statements
birthday wishes and
new year’s kisses

i am the girl
waiting for the crunch
of your footsteps in snowstorms
who treasured your tears
heard words no one listened for
cradled your heart

i am the girl
who kissed you
at the top of the stairs
in the nest we had built
in secret, in private
on side roads at midnight
on my couch in pigtails
in hunger and happiness

i am the girl
with whom you traced
spring’s first edges of life
and we,
laughing as love overflowed
in flourishing colour

i am the girl
touching your ache
finding you back
in all the hidden places;
taking you into mine.

i am the girl
in the long grass of summer
along the winding river road
under the stars with her head on your chest
and her heart in your hands
i am the girl
bright leaves of colours forgotten
falling slowly in the autumn winds

i am the girl with the scars
you said courageous
and beauty crowned me
when I was the girl

winter fast approaches
to seal me in cold
and barren places

i don’t want to be this girl
who spends her time
wondering what happened
who looks for you
even though we both know
you can’t return

(after all this time
and all that will pass
i will never see you
as anything less
than wonderful
and perfect and
he who taught me
to love
and be
loved

after all this time
and all our goodbyes
i will not touch you
though we know
i know that
i am
the girl)

Work it.

(a poem created from a jar of magnetic words; thus my selections were quite limited)

20 years of this, since our one strange date on the 24 Divisadero bus.

Back then I didn’t understand why we were on it, why we didn’t

go somewhere else, but it seems to me now, we have,

forever,

afraid of what would happen when we were

alone, even when we were alone. Even when we

were afraid. Even when it seemed like spending

our lives with someone we knew we couldn’t

spend our lives with, that had to be preferable

to being with it, whatever it was. And now we are not with those

people, and yet it seems to me this

will outlive us, this thing we have carried all this way, and

that it is made of something more durable than

the hearts which are it’s parents,

will climb free of us after our deaths,

and go on to live free of the turmoil in which we spent our lives.

At last, each will say. Now we can be together.

We struggle still, to keep it from being known and

also to keep it.

I love you, you say sometimes. Or you say, Hello, love. Or,

you say some other endearment, and you act as if you say

this to everyone, and perhaps you do, so that when you do

mean it you can say it, and I get to

both know and don’t know. And perhaps we are so

dangerous to it, that together we could destroy it,

that it would die if it were somehow to be ours together. But

perhaps not.

For now, this is how I do it, here,

in this poem you might or might not read, that you might or

might not know is for you. This is where I say, I love you. I say,

Hello, love. I say, If what we feel for each other has lasted

this long and through all the time we have starved it,

can it not last the other way?

With cavernous feelings

Before us gaping.

You yawn, I

Watch love scenes flit by.

“And that awful flower the other day, the dandelion!”

We’ll try it again,

Walking lately through the park

And yellow petal skin, you’ll see!

(Yellow petal skin)

The two of us, we’re

Finally speaking, we’re

Finally speaking,

We’re finally

Just for

Kissing your lips

Once, lightly,

that soft jewelry of mine

And your sweet nose

And your forehead

Entrust all my love and affection there,

Place all the blessings of my entire capacity

The gentle spot under your chin

I would sniff, and brush with my lips

Make you feel cherished and beloved

As you can be, my angel,

Child of my heart,

My beloved.