Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bridge, intimacy, love on April 14, 2020| 2 Comments »
Once I crossed a hanging bridge.
where the planks were missing,
I could see muddy water roiling below—
and the planks that were present
were rotten. That’s the nature
of bridges. Eventually, they fall apart.
Like this one between you and me.
And the nature of love? To rebuild.
And when that fails, because
even the best tools don’t work well
in unskilled hands, that’s the time
to know when to quit trying to fix,
to jump in the swells and swim.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged intimacy, piano, poem, poetry, song, touch on July 14, 2017| 4 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged interdependence, intimacy, poem, poetry, time on March 30, 2015| 1 Comment »
Only a moment, I thought,
just a moment of pulling your breath
into mine would buoy me
through whole oceans of days,
days I would otherwise drown in
save for a single shared moment.
But here I am, beneath the surface,
near out of air, gasping, longing for
hours, no, days, no, whole epochs of closeness
with no sense of starting or ending.
How soon a woman wants more.
I try to fill my pockets with things
that float—the clean scent of spring
and the song of whatever bird that is
outside the window. I try to find
my own lightness I have found before.
I tell myself, this is only a story,
as I sink further down, as the blue deepens.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, intimacy, poem, poetry, wind on March 24, 2015| 2 Comments »
The wind
transfers sand
and the breeze
snatches kites
and the squalls
displace leaves
and the gusts
topple signs,
and forever
yes, even
after I’m dust,
your breath
laced
into mine.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged intimacy, love, mask, poem, poetry on October 14, 2013| 4 Comments »
Take
it off.
The hat.
The jeans.
The shoes.
The shirt.
The missing
rings.
Take off
the watch.
Let down
the hair.
Remove
the public
sparkle
from
the eyes.
Let slip
the beaded
shawl
of shoulds,
the tired
scarves
of worry.
Lonesome
glove
of shame
that still
remains,
thin gloss
of why,
let’s
lose them.
Almost
naked
now my
love, please
touch me
slow
before
we put
it all
back
on.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged intimacy, love, openness, poem, poetry, vulnerability on March 5, 2013| 5 Comments »
In less than a minute
the citadel
around the heart
is reduced to sand,
not by the wrecking ball,
not dynamite,
but with the softest voice
speaking the painful truth
of how sad, how broken we are.
In that unlocked moment,
even the air is naked.
It is impossible to imagine
that anything ever came between us,
or that anything ever will again.
But it does come back,
doesn’t it, that thick gray wall.
Sometimes thicker
or taller than before.
Birds come to roost there.
Ivy grows up the face.
Who knows who scrawls
all that graffiti on both sides.
And then, in an instant,
it’s gone again. Nothing but dust.
With the softest voice.
The painful gift. It’s
so messy, so beautiful,
how broken we are.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, conversation, daughter, familiarity, intimacy, love, mother, poem on August 23, 2012| 7 Comments »
In the middle of the night
mom finds me still awake
and makes us tea. We stand
in her bright kitchen and cradle
our steaming cups. How
the hands like something to do,
even at this quiet hour.
We talk through the scent
of licorice root and chamomile,
we talk with no phones or children,
chores or appointments to interrupt.
She is older than I think she is.
When I’m not with her, I see her
as the mother of my childhood,
her hair not yet gray, her spine
not yet bent. She is lovelier
than I think she is. I don’t
think of my mother as beautiful,
only as my mom. But here,
in this wrinkle of early hours,
she radiates, even as her chin
begins to quiver, even as she bites
her lower lip to stay the tears,
even as her tears miss the steeping tea,
she is radiant. Even as she collapses
her shoulders and laments little things
she can no longer do, she glows,
and I see her not only as my mother,
more fragile than I like to think,
but as someone so full of light, someone
I so very much want to know.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Blue Angels, defensiveness, intimacy, love, openness, poem, poetry on August 19, 2012| 4 Comments »
I had a dream I could fly. –Priscilla Ahn
The Blue Angels leave five white tracks overhead.
They are going eight hundred miles per hour,
the announcer says. Below them, I am going
nowhere. They fly closer to each other than my knees
are to the pier. Eighteen inches apart. What to make
of these details. The announcer spills them
through the radio like my brother’s dog
spills the half empty beer beneath the lawn chair.
It seems important, noteworthy, but later,
these points will not touch me the way your hands would.
It is more something to nod at, to say back and forth
to each other, to marvel at aloud. As if it could
bring us closer together, this trading of numbers
and shaking of heads. But the day is warm
and the body can’t help but tremble when the jets push
through the blue above us, displacing sound
and rearranging the air. It is not the speed
that impresses me or even the nearness
of wingtip to nose, but the way that over two million
of us have gathered to watch them fly
in close triangles and peel apart again.
How we long for greatness, how we’re drawn
to the fastest, the loudest, the best. How we long
to come together, to connect. I am not
the best, love. I am tired, getting old. I am
wrinkled and sun-speckled, forgetful and soft.
I am no longer fast, was never the fastest.
I am not strong. I’m defeated. I’m less.
But I am open to love, to being still.
I am ready to drop the stream of facts
and touch (is it possible) what is left.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being seen, hiding, intimacy, mask, poem, tanka on August 11, 2012| 9 Comments »
with one hand
I wave for you
to see me
with the other
I retie my mask
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, intimacy, love, poem, poetry, relationship on April 7, 2012| 2 Comments »
Forever? That’s quite
a promise, but can you
love me now?
*
On my lips
too many rising kisses
left to dangle
*
Reaching for your hand
to touch
what doesn’t speak