Finally (12-30-06)

when snow falls,
finely
dusting
brick and tar and tongue the same,
even the chickadees sit quiet,
pausing
for this exhale
into winter.

10-19-06 (last winter)

when my feet felt so cold,
I tried on your slippers.
my toes tried to touch
each curve in the sole.

your house smelled like hot tea,
compost, and baking,
like books in the basement:
ink mixed with mold.

I'm sorry for trying to fit
in your slippers.
I'm sorry for trying
your warmth for my cold.

I left them behind
just how you first left them,
empty but knowing
your imprints would hold.

............radicle..........................................................................
...nothing but a chance................................................................
.anchored in shifting soil.............................................................
...the seed starts to peek..............................................................
.....past itself, to seek..................................................................
.....out a stronger grip................................................................
.......like a raw nerve..................................................................
.........the first root:....................................................................
.............radicle..........................................................................

your fall

2:30 in the morning
and your face keeps sneaking
into my sleep.
It's getting colder now
and the trees start to mimic
death, bare branches
and creaking limbs
testing their roots.

I used to visit you
in your hospital room.
I'd sit and stare at your
end-of-autumn frame
and beg you to bloom again.

one good thing about winter

in the winter
just like in the fall
I will come home
to find you
leaning back in my
video game chair
maybe watching t.v.
maybe playing your guitar
maybe with your eyes shut
but waiting
just like in the fall
for when I come home
and it is time for our nap.

It's not that I don't like to share

but sometime between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.
the sheets start to shrink
into a heap of tugs and wrinkles
that gather at the foot of our bed

and I want to corral the covers;
but you are like an anchor
made of legs and arms and heavy breath

Waiting with Macmow

Like waiting for a poem to form,
I watch your exhales escape you.
Nothing now but the frame of you.
Nothing now but the rhythm of death:
slow beats and fast breath.

Your sounds mimic the moans of labor
and so I scoop you up onto my lap
and try to follow your breath, panting
with you now, while we wait
for the final push.

I watch his hands dance
over the master card
arced like a wave, crushing
rock into the fine white line.


Now on my second drink.
Now on his second wind.
I'm holding my six pack
like a suitcase, searching
for something stronger.

a little springtime rhyme

let's pretend I'm like that yellow flowered weed
that sprouts up in the spring to nourish those in need.

now you're like the animal who's doubtful that it's free
but is tempted by the thought of some dandelion tea.

Delicates

Brown Egyptian cotton sheets
meet last night's underwear
in my washer.

I'm pretty sure it's all delicate
but the knob wont push past
cotton-sturdy.

I fish around the side sink, searching
out lint from the nickel sized drain
to let soiled suds seep through.

There's still whiskey on my floor
and on my breath from the night before
but this is just the first rinse.

broken

what if i had let go

that summer in Northern California
when the heat stuck to our backs
and our backs to the dirt
and the dirt hung
like your scent to my neck.

we camped on the edge
of a stream, below rebel redwoods
tempting the sheets of moss to stretch further.

my back to the dirt and yours to the clouds,
I tried to take you all in.
But once I noticed the first bit of forest, I noticed it all-
except for you.

I told you I cried after we made love
because I couldn't get clean enough.

We had spent three months in that tent
and three years in us
and now after a year without

it is still the dirt that keeps me grounded.
it is still the dirt that clings back.