love

Bittersweet

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With what is left
We will take a bite
Of this bitter cake

You will pretend it’s sweet
And I will say the truth
(the brutal truth) as always

It will coat your palette
Leave crumbs on your tongue
That keep you from talking.

When we kiss, its mix of flavors
Will linger between your mouth and mine
(but you won’t wholly share it)

As pungent as a blackberry
Squeezing its midsummer juices
Into the sugary cobbler,

With what is left
We will take a bite
And I too will taste what you call sweet.

My Actual Day

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

if you could see my day
for an actual day
(never just ten minutes)

ribbons of confusion
would dance across your eyes
(your feet might dance too)

you would see how it moves
from smooth and easy
(perfection at its best)

to a conglomerate of
chaotic preteen desire
mixed with teacherly sarcasm

you would see them
for who they really are
(see me for who I really am)

and you would know
you would actually know
when what I say is right.

but

i will accept your
harried commentary
(we are all harried)

if you can accept
a compliment that
everyone knows

everyone, everyone knows
(the one thing they hate to know)
is the truth.

they are amazing
amazing amazing
and some day

(if you could see my day,
my actual day)
you, too, will know this.

Ever

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standing between this moment and that one
we’ve drawn an imperceptible line
(only our hearts can see it)
how it hovers over us
darkness enveloping
the light we should share

standing between this moment and that one
i can still see the other moment
(it is mine, it is ours)
and i want to take a giant eraser
and clear the board
of every line
every imperceptible line
that ever has
that ever will
that forever will never
divide us.

Warriors

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don’t go off the sidewalk
we warn as they abandon
their ice cream remnants
and dash to their brief
moment of freedom.

fearless leader number one
follows the handicap ramp
to its very edge, dangles
her arm like a proud warrior
over the parking lot,
two mini warriors behind,
waiting, watching, weaning
themselves into a new era
of independence.

Within (without)

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i knew what i had
held within my hands
(held right before my eyes)
in perfect amazement
how perfectly you
mesmerized them (me)

now i stand to the side
awkward and disappointed
holding back tears
as i ache for what we had together
(what your light shined
upon me, upon them)

she will never know this.
only you and i could
possibly understand
the perfect harmony
held within our hands
that they (we) will
have to live without.

D & F Tower

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As stated matter-of-factly
hundreds of times, this tower
(brick-not-steel, pointed
and dominant) was the tallest
building in Denver when

at age twenty-one, like the
pioneers two generations back
(two generations back from me)
my great-aunt Frances walked
through downtown (1937)

We enter it for the first time in
my life tonight, year twelve of
our young marriage. “Finally,”
you say, “something you haven’t
already done,” opening the door for me.

Did she see it? Painted crown molding
on the ceilings, intricately laid
white marble (smooth and cool
against the skin on a summer night),
architecture from a bygone era.

Would she care about the cabaret
burlesque show that emanates from
the basement stairwell? Or did she know,
with her domineering, independent shoes
that carried her here from Kansas,

that, just like the steel-concrete-glass
skyscrapers that have tried to trump this,
it still stands in a changing world,
here we stand in a changing world,
its strength (our strength) unwilling to give up
its place in the heart of the city (of love).

My Moon

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the music has ended
(crickets are singing now)
and there are no cicadas here

their tiny legs call out to us
in the deep of night and the
light shining on my belly?

it is like that night under the moon
white sand encircling our toes
where i walked to the water alone

you remember. how anger and
longing threw us apart, how i
imagined a trip there alone, with them.

in a perfect circle, the moon
led me along the beach, wind
whispering the truth to me

we didn’t have electricity
a bathroom or a camper,
nothing but haste and desire

i think of this now only because
of the songs you have chosen
now ended, given in to insects

i will carry them (the music of
our lives) to sleep along with my moon.
i would be lost without it.

Forty-three Miles

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forty-three miles
and we have left behind the skyline
(cash register, stadium, buildings so new
i cannot recognize their sunken Saturday lights)
that i saw first at seven, then nine,
then permanently at eleven

we are surrounded by pines
and the famous aspens,
the cabin built from the ground up
with logs pasted together,
stone fireplace, wood stove,
eclectic collection of furniture
(home away from home)

we follow the girls along
the not-so-traveled path,
pine emanating its Rocky Mountain
odor into our altitude-chilled skin,
and I remember
(oh how I remember)
why Colorado is
home, home, home.

My Mountain

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For Olivia

walking together
hands apart
we could climb
slope after slope

it could be pretty
with shrubs
and wildflowers
and young scrub oaks

it might sprinkle,
sparkling your eyes
just a tad with
twisted rays of light

you could lead the way
and i could follow
(something new for me)
and give in to your desires.

but

it wouldn’t build
our hamstrings
with the ever-harder
mountain climbs

it wouldn’t bring
us (no matter how many slopes)
to the glorious
tops of fourteeners

it would never be the same
as tall pines giving way
to snow-covered peaks,
to insurmountable beauty

it would be you and i
new and rounded
(soft and wary)
not as hard-won as the years
(the poking-into-sky
sharp-at-our-cores
daring-to-be-ourselves
mountain peaks)
i have given to her,
my mountain,
my home,
my love.

Idiom

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there’s no question that you and I
circle together in yin and yang;
just throw your worries into the sky
‘cause without your buck I’d have no bang.

it may seem like a common idiom
to say that opposites attract;
we swing on both sides of the pendulum—
when I go forward, you pull back.

but nothing’s common about our love
for thirteen years in the making;
without you I could not rise above
all that together we have forsaken.

so swallow these words and keep them deep
as black against white balance out;
until the moment of my last sleep
you have my heart without a doubt.