1Hundred

wandering the world in peace,
my feet led me to my rise and fall,
my own sinuous dance bringing me back
to the surface, to look to the sun,
to search for answers to questions
i didn’t even know i had. there are no answers,
you see – i see. i see. i see into the void and
retreat into my darkness.

hunting, gathering, for berries and life,
weaving through the brier patches,
i found you in a tower, my love, waiting for
your hand to be taken, to be swept away -

- when all along you took in the view
into the Hudson from your corner office,
watching the sea-gulls swoop down
to catch rotting fish in their beaks,
wishing them to become sea monsters.

yesterday, we sat at the table
and in a fit of mirth and fury,
scratched and banged every spoon
and fork against the plates,
demanding attention from your face
turned away from us, your hands wrinkling
under the water from scrubbing out dishes.

my moments fall into distilled memories -
the lingering warmth in the early mornings,
the bike dad and i tried to fix with a wrench,
the stories i read to them, their heads
nodding off to sleep, eyes heavy like lead.
“Can we do this again tomorrow?”

today, now, under this resplendent sun,
blazing white and fire, tomorrow is
in the dark distance; you still scrub
your dishes and floors, and i let my breath
vaporize, mingling on top of the crushed roses.

such stories live on blank sheets of paper;

of every bridge on every night
with every shadow at every angle
with every puff of smoke
mushrooming into a cloud of grey
over the mirror of the pool of water beneath,
hiding the moon in every phase -

- and of every shadow
cutting across the dark walls,
digging for dirt into the hidden nooks -

and always of that one time
when you turned to look;
when my shadow touched yours
and slowly slipped away.

it’s easy to fall apart
when i don’t know your name
and you don’t have to see
me falling apart, into shreds
of wet paper -

- and i especially like it,
“it” the nondescript nothing, i know,
but i enjoy not being found out, let’s say
when i am tap dancing into my glass
of red wine that was left
on the table, under the lamp,
in my apartment, over the bridge -

you should come back
and finish the cold steak
and the now soggy carrots

so i can dip my finger
into my glass of wine,
and watch you eat and run
my finger around the rim of my glass

and you should come back
and eat really slowly

so for once i can finally walk away.

and you know that moments change lives - 

there’s a distillery, you know

imagine like a drop by drop by drop

through a funnel into the decanter

this unliquid, unwater, unyesterday unwine.

unwhine.

like when the clock ticks,

you want to know and say

you’ll never get this footstep back

so leave your toe buried under

the pile of wet tomorrow leaves.

if only you could live in today, i sighed.

if only you could open your eyes

and see - 

heaven is where you want it to be.

from doorway to doorway

i have fallen into a myriad of colors

into purples of flowers

and greens of field

or reds of lost dreams, to go back and see

when you flicked feathers at me

and you know, i dropped that glass

that you tried to hand to me

but my eyes were closed 

so tight shut.

and sometimes even

into a sky of white

not so much air as just falling

through dreams, 

but that was a red world

i thought, and my kaleidoscope

turned and threw me into

a yellow humor - 

jaundice? “No. You’re lovesick.”

and throwing away my pangs of hunger

I had returned to my 

tinkering, poking around with my rusty

screwdriver, in my rusty old radio, 

turning the dial to fuzzy static,

stumbling into a different lens

before i had a chance to make a home

in any one colorful snippet

of my life.

and now, oh how, i have wondered - 

how would i have lived

if i had held your hand?

i’ve been dreaming of snaking wires

wrapping themselves around trees,

buzzing in a low hum, and

spinning spools of coils;

there’s a hypnotic calling

in this soft cooing of “butter tones” - 

velvety, and slippery,

these juxtaposed textures,

forming links and chains in the branches

reaching out and forming canopies

zig-zagging their way

through dark rooms,

getting under the feet of

people who used to be

more important than little boxes

holding random values.

but I digress, dontchaknow

because in the blink of an eye

you’re cornered into standing still

{.i’m cornered into standing still.}