peace

The Runway of His Dreams

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we have left the pretty pink bar,
beauty slipping from sky in silent flakes.
the roads are not icy yet,
but moist in anticipation:
the wipers push away drops
(we have no possibility of sliding)

i watch the silent storm
move into my city,
remembering him in eighth grade,
so tiny and cute,
turning around in social studies
and making fun of the teacher

he is not here,
but rides along the slick streets
inside my mind as i pull back
the cautious, modest man he has become,
a beauty in the Beauty Bar
with his grace and patience,
more perfect than any dress
he could ever create
for the runway of his dreams.

Nothing Short of Art

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we sit in central citified sun
sipping smoothies and lattes,
munching on freshly baked croissants
and chatting with strangers
on a day so warm it can’t be
the third week of January
(a beauty we all share
as we peel off our winter coats)

they skip alongside on an impromptu adventure,
moving along the zero street,
playing pig and picking out dates
on ovular stamps in concrete.

we enter the train store
and examine the pure wonder
of details so tiny, humans
standing knee-deep in plexiglass water,
monkeys climbing up a fallen-apart billboard,
and fast-moving trains. one declares,
it is nothing short of art

later i pedal into the wind
around the dam and up the hill
until i see the circular beauty of the lake,
and its curvacious path
interweaves me with a hundred pairs of legs,
all taking advantage
of this day like no other

before i am home
i am home,
and can almost forget
the tears whose all night sting
kept my eyes bleeding till morning,
the two dark, cold miles of separation,
and the hollowness of our words
that find their way
into the poems he wishes i wouldn’t write.

Estamos Bien

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mañana tenemos el
Acción de Día de Gracias tercera

he stands in an airport
with laughter at the back of his voice,
the emotion so close to tears
that they sit waiting
on the edges of my lids

estamos bien.
tenemos una avión mañana por la mañana

because we are all well
with them in our midst–
so un-American to be grateful
for a night longer,
a missed flight,
a smile that we’ve all tucked away
inside ourselves
(that he fishes out
as easily as catching
tadpoles on a hot June day)

Thanksgiving dos,
we sit and share thanks:
one of the four girls
mentions her extra parents
(the highlight of the evening)

i bring forth my Spaniards
(absent)
but with an ever-present influence
on every thought i have,
on every emotion that has crossed my heart
in the four short months
that i have made them mine

Isabella gives me the look
as if i could forget
the reason we are all gathered,
for without these four girls,
none of this happiness
could float in the room
carrying the
feliz día de los padres
mylar balloon
up to the ceiling,
zhuzhu pet attached,
miracle in place
(can you see it?)

and the Spaniards?
they would live somewhere else,
and our surrealistic vision
of tomorrow
would be so.
real.
so.
unimaginative.

instead?
i hear him laugh
about fumando el toro,
the night in the airport
and our third,
and final,
Thanksgiving meal.

Película

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i send my camera
zoomed in and out
around our table of twelve
their words slip
like bubbles from their tongues
escaping into the heat
popping before i can catch them

drinks go to lips
songs emerge as naturally
as water flowing from the mountains
they have no idea
they are being filmed

sleep pushes at my eyelids
as the Taiwanese pasta
settles in my belly
but i could stay here forever
listening to the language
i crave to understand
immersing myself in the people
whose home i’ll never know

it is like a dream really
and i pinch myself awake
so full of life
they are so full of life
that no language
could define
just what my video
will never capture

Mixer

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i cannot replicate the complex crest
nor mimic la bandera de España.
i cannot be the arms of your mother
or speak coherently her tongue.

i can only pour in the ingredients,
spin the mixer of all we desire,
and place before you in red and yellow
everything your presence means to me.

i cannot say in words what the cake will tell
in so many sweet remembrances,
so many little tastes that sparkle
like the teardrops in the corners of her eyes.

Delight

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just like the balloon animals
you have hidden in your suitcase
to the enthralled delight
of three learning-Spanish girls,
you are a rainbow of surprises
whose colors we cannot wait to discover.

Twisted Logic

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how can i explain
the twisted logic
she openly verbalizes
as we sift through photos
of smoke and ash?

she will only see (one day)
perfect reflection pools,
beams of light calling to heaven,
beautiful bright buildings
standing like shadows
in place of what was lost.

she will not remember
(or pull back tears as i do),
but look into the world
with the hope that
the twisted logic of those ‘pilots’
is left behind with the rubble
they wrapped in a flag and carried home.

Colors of the Night

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i forget (as we sit here,
our hamstrings on the boat’s spine)
the colors of the day

was the sky as blue as the jays
darting in and out of trees?
were the forests a mixture of
pine and deciduous greens?

your mouth reaches mine
like the palm of a blind man
cupping my lead home

all i can see now (day washed away)
are contrasting colors of night
silver, black, gray, and white
as sharp as noon in my sight

you press against me (i reach out)
clasping the colors in my hand
your movements trapping them in memory

black unblurrable jagged mountaintops
over silver unpretentious waves of lake
sky’s gray bosom bursting with rainclouds
beneath the full serving of white moon

i forget (breaths heavy with dew)
the colors of the day, see only
carved out images in colors of the night

Breeze of Love

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single women in spaghetti straps
men in khakis, collars and ties
linger in line for $3 microbrews
as we soak up the sounds of summer

girls giggle and groove at the front
forgetting for once they’re so small
beer bubbles in belly, beckons a smile
carrying kids through crowds into crescents

the ride home through Victorian
Colonial Craftsman Contemporary
bike lanes on every side street
brings a breeze of love through Lexington
lovely to love, to live, to meet.

My Sunset

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Kentucky heat on a
new side of the state
(one that doesn’t give in
to early sunsets)
guides us up and down
hills on a windless evening

i grin,
back on the bike
after a week,
two whirlwind drives
six states over from
the mountains
as lush vines
thick-as-elephant tree trunks
and curvacious
nonchalant
southern hills carry us home

we stop
just shy of their house,
a perfect park
(playground and all)
distant trees
gripping the edges
of a burning red circle
that strikes
my sixteen-year-old heart
still beating lovingly
all these years later
that same sun
hidden by wisps of clouds
a bright mark of beauty
on the tired world
over the spires and forests
of Oxford
now reappears,
and i have no stairs to sit on,
no lonely walk home,
no desperate inquiries
in a dorm hallway
about what was missed,
but instead
my hands on my handlebars,
him standing beside me,
my sunset shared at last.