Gold and Green

I can’t remember, now,
what color your eyes are
or the shape of nose or lips.
All I can see from memory
is the way your hair
glimmered in the sun
gold against the green.

Sometimes

I think of you
and it happens,
you appear, like I conjured you
from swirling smoke
and your laughter is the music
in my dreams-
how can I help but know you?
I do know you, I do,
You haunted me in dreams for years,
as you haunt me now in fact.

Neal

Your laughter echoes down this corridor of time
a thousand days or memories or more;
and sometimes, I still see your eyes
watching me from wherever it is
you’ve gone, so far away.

I want to yell loud enough for you to hear,
find out where time took you
sit on your sidewalk and tell you I’m sorry.
Dance on your lawn and tell you
you were right.

Break Fast

Toast is bland is an insult
is not the bursting sweetness
and slightly grainy texture
of corn cake, eaten warm.

My desire is all flavor
is in flood
is salivation;
salvation deposited
on the tongue, melting-
it needs salt. 

I do not ask for this
any more than I crave
bland cereals or egg. 

All I want is my tongue-
for this, for flavors sake
for keeping
and swallowing hard.

Grandmother Crying Tears of Milk

I watched her listening from across the room;
blood calling out,
instinctive knowledge of the family bond,
the female branch of DNA
her root to my branch.

Such clear skin- she almost glowed where the sun passed over her.

I could not contain myself, I left Granny standing
at the door while I cast my self across a room
a fledgling among ancients.

I never knew how I managed
to end up on my knees, my poor thin and
burned/scratched knees
one small hand between hers

Such bent and gnarled hands, like claws or twisted branches.

She didn’t see me, her eyes were too poor
people came and read the Bible to her-she liked a good deep voice
she mentioned wistfully
head cocked vaguely in the direction
of a young girl reading in a nasal twang.
And she immediately grasped me closer and whispered

be honest with me, child, please
and tell me if your father is in a wheelchair
everyone tells me no
but I worry about that boy.

Grandmother and I assured her that
it wasnt true, he wouldnt be in a wheelchair
and several other assurance and messages
and Aunt Pat asking if I liked her stuffed babies
and I very uncomfortably said I thought they were special.

And she couldnt SEE, you know?
I was thin bones and not much flesh and a small blur of color on the floor at her feet and the skin was so translucent that the tear that overflowed looked like milk and

I wanted to cry and always do when I think of that woman
that wheelchair and the whiny voice of the girl in the background .

And that one tear and how it looked like milk,
like mothers milk and grandmother and all the ones before
in an unbroken stream of
birthlifedeathbirth

Cinquain For the Color Periwinkle

Velvet
soft skied,nap time;
perfect fuzzy baby blue of
blankets.

The Part You Cast Away

I just want a little space
to warm myself
on stony silence,
and steal some heat
from your sleeping breath.

 
Sometimes to heal a wound
one must cut it open,
release the pus
drain the infection.
It has to bleed, soon or late.

 
It is better to have it done,
vomit it all outwards and away-
projectile,
careful who and why you hit.
Please cry- I haven?t tears enough

 
to understand:
the everything or nothing
that is this nights work.
This wound opening ,
This storm gathering

This anger so like a mist ,
so like a cloud.