Blinds up

The best surprise was four warm bodies
(seen better days, curlier hair, more supple skin)
Sitting around the dark wood gleaming with a coat
Of fresh polish and four faces (seen better days,
fewer wrinkles, eyes sparkling with light at the beginning
of the tunnel) reflected back in stainless
steel plates adorned with overbaked chestnuts and too cold
pizza. But the strangers staring in at the bay window
(seen better days, freshly windexed) wouldn't look twice
Because our holy silence is almost normal.

Thank you for small unnoticed miracles.
Thank you for giving Clarence his wings

loves me

Everyday is a shattering
a smattering of petals ripped
from dozens of long stems your former lovers never gave you,
your fingers mindlessly meditating on a childhood mantra,
and now the air is thick with pollen
and bees droning at their targets, missing their guides,
and around you the colors make all the suffering seem worth it,
and you sneeze

before I wasted my youth he gave me tulips in a blue glass
made for sipping, for morning routines, for water enemas,
and those flowers draped over the walls of their new home
like the limbs of a gangly teenager, wilting despite
their sprightliness
and I flashed him dimples he'll never forget

when my beauty was seeping away
I delivered a morning bouquet of tacky carnations and daisies
to a brunette whose smile I'll never forget

to receive is human
to give is to be God

I wanted you to be different
I wanted you to make me God

Lambert

This woman I love told me she is from another planet,
and as we sit in the car, engine running, watching the
suitcases and trolleys and goodbye kisses float by
one by one like snowflakes landing on our tongues
--ephemeral, beautiful, flavorless impressions--
I think I agree with her.

Her eyes are vibrant, her cheekbones tall and proud,
and her hair curly, short, inspires you to cut off your own,
overnight gray from a spiritual awakening that left her
too wise for my kind. We hold hands and my mind feels blank
as one of the travelers--an old friend I've never met--catches my eye,
catches me people-watching, catches sight of my parted lips
and my arrested heartbeat.

She and I, we hug goodbye, our farewell more esoteric than normal.
More unsettling. More eerie. More permanent. Frighteningly permanent.
The wheels of my luggage grate against the pavement and
my heart wishes these unpleasant thoughts away
and she drives away.

He greets me at the water fountain. His dark eyes, the dimple
on his left cheek, his outstretched hand beg the question of why
it's been six long years without more than a smile in the parking lot.
We talk like long-lost brother and sister about Peru, about injustice
(we always knew it would be so) until it's time for me to board,
until it's time for me to lose her.