l'uomo dell'autobus

I know the many corners
And closets
And hallways
Of your story
How you wooed your wife
At the lago
Picking strawberries
How you puffed with pleasure
For not one
But two
Handsome sons
All your stories dripped
Of Imperial Pride
That blood
Still alive in your body
You spoke of Dante
And I lied
When I returned
Your book, too foreign for my soul
The first time I saw your knife
I was almost
Almost afraid
But boredom will be put to use
I think I was your equal
There without shelter
There unwelcome
Waiting for salvation from a hard-day's work
Sometimes you looked
With desire
But old desire
Less for me than for you
I know that without you
I felt exposed
To the elements
To the hungry traffic
I know that in your absence
I stood
With Fear
My other, faithful Companion
I know that I clenched my ticket
Soaked of sweat
Hoping to free it
From my shaking hands
And I know that one day I will pass our spot
Maybe you'll be there
Maybe not
But I will see you, chewing grass
Though I won't call to you
I couldn't
Three years
And I never knew your name.

i saw a gift withheld

When will the mothers say, “Enough!”

When will they look at their babies and agree,

“He is no longer a part of me”?

When will the mothers release

The fathers from their undone crime,

Admit, “He’s yours as much as mine”?

For what does the father have

That the mother does not give him?

hands

I remember strolling up to you
As you waited for me on the corner
Head down in your phone
Behind the faithful busker

I watched you and wondered
What you saw in me
What made you come
And wait

Hey
I grabbed your arm
And kissed your cheek
It triggered a smile
You squeezed me tight

You let me walk out to the ocean
By then my lips were chapped
But you kept on singing
That song about love

And nudging me
And searching
With your eyes
For my hand

And I almost released it
From its pocket-shelter
I swear I almost

Slipped


My hand



In yours




I--

erased

All of me is tired, a quill run dry
Where's the witch who fed me contempt like a drug?
I'd like to tell her my name
I'd like to write down the list
Of all
The lovers
She
Erased

Who's to blame if I'm a half-read book
If I tempt you to skip some pages I call "blank"?
They bleed of unkind revision
I'd like to cut off the hand
That marred
My truth
And
Left

valentine's morning

I've escaped here to the water
To hide in the mist with the other un-lovers
I'd like to ask the Fog Families why
They take their babies out in the cold
And the magic
To sit on a blanket
Where the waves meet the shore

But I am running faster
Every heartbeat proof
That muscle still functions
If I were brave I'd come out to you
If the un-sheltered ones hadn't played their power games
If I were less encaged out here in the wide-open...
I'd come out to the rocks and listen

But I continue
I pass one who's unpacked his suitcases
All he owns
Here in the sand
"Nice sunglasses!" he says
I exhale a laugh--where was that buried?

They were heart-shaped.

i'd forgotten

The angry ones are the lovers
They still have something to fight for
They still have someplace to fight from

I stopped loving when I lost my voice
Somewhere after they called me Mean
Somewhere before I lost my mind

When the leeches were leeching
But my home was still a sheltered thing
Not this hermit-shell I know now

Until she renamed me in the dark
And I nearly dropped my tear-stained phone
And the children's voices called me back

Back to my body, shaking and afraid
Back to the garden where we all felt free
Where I sometimes remembered to smile

I heard chains breaking, on like an echo
Somewhere in the dungeon of my heart
And Someone calling me by a name I'd forgotten:

Lover.

in honor of the maze at hampton court palace

I set out to get lost one day
If I may
Rely upon the ancient text
It works like this, in retrospect:

I had to run and clear my head
I had to smell the sweet perfume
That lying in my dusty bed
Only led to doubt and gloom

I lept up bright one morning grey
No need for coat or shoes
I lept up at the break of day
My feet, the engines of my muse

I ran to that twisted green
All secret plans absorbed there
From only above could I be seen
Thus safe from idle courtiers

And there in pointless paths
I opened up my heart
And watched it fly away
As birds do with a start

I saw it sit so freely
In the tree above my head
As I continued pacing
Crooked lines of bushy mead

I ran, hands brushing living walls
Turning green as the leaves they kissed
I ran both hidden and exposed
Watching my storm clouds shift

The earth had hugged me oh so well
As I stamped across her moss
And God gifted me with being found
The moment I cried, "I am lost"!