Marinated

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on giant skewers
more sword-like than knife-like
they shave off our marinated meat.

we pile it on top of our
quail eggs, turkey salami,
and marinated mushroom salads.

they pop up every thirty seconds
until our plates are smaller than our eyes
and the tastes linger, love in our mouths.

you walk with me across this city, hands in pockets.
we look at all the lights. we stop
for coffee/tea in our bookstore.

the horses are decorated with glittered hooves
and Santa bells, antlers strapped on
and Mrs. Claus at the reigns.

we step into the tower again. the Santa-hatted
door man convinces us to go downstairs.
we laugh until we cry and miss the light rail.

the crisp winter air bites at our lungs
as we walk from stop to stop. images and tastes
boil up within my blood. you keep me warm.

it is three in the morning before we’re home.
the years have marinated, because we never did this,
not once, before we had them.

now it’s more glorious than any gift you could have given me.
was it the meal, the rainbow of lights on Larimer, the show?
i will never know. only passion will i remember.

The Market

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it’s still here
this place i knew
where last i came
under these same sparkling
rays of light
as a teenager with friends
where we bought coffee
and chocolate
shipped in from Vermont
where we sat in
these same heart-shaped
wire-backed
uncomfortable wooden chairs
and laughed and laughed
and walked around
looking at expensive
hot cocoas
and liberal media magazines,
the same ones
that line the shelves this evening,
beer and dinner in our stomachs,
i fall in love all over again.

Music

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the leaves left from fall
dance across our patio,
their crisp skeletal skins skidding
to the howling background hymn.

this same howling harmony
danced across the road today,
beating me down to my bones
as i pushed toward a quieter tune.

trapped inside a fluorescent prison,
i couldn’t quite find the melody
that with a few angry notes
the wind whipped out of me.

perhaps you stand somewhere
on the other side of the sky,
unable to hear the song i sing
amidst the howling, haunting music.

Writing My Bike

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it came to me in the summer.
Writing My Bike:
this should be the name of my new blog.
will i only write when i ride?
will i only ride when i write?

winter’s creeping in
with bitter cold mornings
that make my pedals run stiffly,
my layered legs tight with frost,
my mittened hands gripping
the first wisps of light on early mornings.

He may try, but Jack Frost can’t deter me.
i’ll be writing my bike to the top
of a mountain in May (racing a train),
and i need these legs to pedal me
through everything that will come
between now and then.

Advent

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we’re counting down
and can’t even begin
without a fight.
the felt openings
hold only mini ornaments
this year, no candy.
we’re trying to cut back,
though you can’t seem
to understand why.
this should be the advent
of happiness. perhaps
we can reinvent ourselves
and come, reborn, tomorrow.

November Daughters

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Mythili

Freshly six, your latest
obsessions are your new Zhu Zhu
and the Tangled doll
with hair so long
I had to braid it on day one.
Just like when you were two,
you guard your possessions
as fiercely as a new mother,
holding them close to your chest
on all adventures, theirs and yours.
A year from now, what will you love most?
Will you have abandoned these items
for the latest movie character,
or have given in to your love of books,
your soon-to-be expert knowledge of words?
As I say whenever you ask me a question
that I’m not so sure of an answer to
(my response, in your eyes, a yes),
we’ll see.

Riona

With a long line,
a tiny half circle attached,
a diagonal drawn like a
ray of light across the page,
you have written the first
letter of your name. You ask
for more, and I feed them to you.
You swallow them up and
regurgitate the connected-dot i,
the perfect o, the upside-down n,
and the little a, a circle and tail.
And just as you are not quite sure
how to make the letters just right,
I am not quite sure how I am
going to stand here and watch you grow.

Isabella

Fifty-four pounds, almost half my weight,
you still ask me to carry you.
I reach around your skinny waist
and hoist you up, your arms
flailing wildly (impossible
for you to be still, even now)
as we move into your bedroom.
A kiss good night, a button on the iPod,
and you will listen to the same song tonight,
on repeat, that has played for six months.
I imagine your wedding day,
your groom picking you up in a dance.
Will you play this song, remember its waltz?
Or will I be the only one singing,
“Cantaremos alto, cantaremos bajo,”
until my heart can go neither high nor low,
but stay as neutral as your weight in my arms allows.

Forty Nine Degrees

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the only time
forty nine degrees
can send thrills
instead of chills
is when
the principal’s voice
enters our classrooms
with a message
that sends even
the teacher’s arms
into the air
amongst jubilant screams
from the students:
“Early dismissal.”
Now that’s the way
to start a Monday.

Christmas Morning

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it is what it is
whether you accept it or believe it
(me, neither)
a consumer’s holiday
propped up
with bells and music
church visits
and nativity scenes.
we lie to them
from birth.

somehow,
with enough eggnog amaretto
and song after song
gift after gift
we buy into
this charade,
inundating another generation
of false generosity.

Thanksgiving’s over.
Let’s shed ourselves
of the one truly American holiday
and head to the mall
where we can be
the sickening
self-absorbed
Americans we have all come
to love, come
Christmas morning.

Mixed

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the time between then and now
could be a moment
or a thousand days.
it is blurry to me, mixed in
with the constant complaints
of blossoming children,
work that binds me,
responsibility that i
sometimes wish i could shed.

i still remember those youthful nights
that in no way i am now allowed.
you might remember too,
your passion mixed with mine.

i have tried to find it,
searching somewhere deep,
but even with my eyes closed,
mixed with characters who haunt me,
i cannot remedy what can’t be fixed.

Bicyclist

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all i can see
as we drive home in silence
from a date
that we never get
that has allowed us no words
is the bicyclist
who races his pedals up the hill
nearly as fast as our pedals
can drive us
and how you,
you will never see
the beauty that i see.