all i can promise

aim high,
the air force commercial said.
but instead, tonight,
my love
i'll tell you this:

i've got no immediate plans
to learn the polka
or speak perfect french
or run for office
or play better tennis
or skate flawlessly
or make a regular habit of yoga
or read all the classics
or save my dying orchid.

i don't intend
to run marathons
or resist a good chocolate cake
or speak too soon
or speak too softly
or lie, catatonic, in front of The Apprentice,
or lie my way out of trouble
or lie down without you.

i can't say
there'll be a theatrical debut
or a nobel prize
or a magic potion
or a winning lottery ticket.

all i know
is that there will be days
we will get so tired,
the two of us,
just tired.

so will you forgive me,
my love,
if all i can promise you, tonight,
is sleep?

what they don't tell you about love

the way you'll shuffle forward, stumbling on the uphills,
taking small, incremental steps to avoid catastrophe.
and that you will reach a delicate precipice regardless,
and the drop will seem doomed and dismal
and your heart will want to flee
and you will remember how
your heart did flee once, twice,
numbers of times,
you will count them on the fingertips of your left hand
you will churn memories forward
tell misbegotten tales of
wrong turns and broken hearts
and not-so-narrow escapes.

you will arrive at the clearing with these stories
calendars full of your own, unwitting demise,
the shit you've done you thought, on the one hand,
could make a good anecdote, and then, now, in the telling,
does not at all,
your pockets will be stuffed
with muddy handfuls of stories
vicious reminders of your own unintended failures
the limits your young, unschooled heart kept to
to survive each earthquake.

and still, there will be this small miracle.
the treeline bare, visible again.
the trail ending at last.
your body, loosed from its own precise choreography.

and your cells will make the decision
for once.

you will grab at your history
in hungry fistfuls.
you will fling the pockets outward
emptying yourself of what is now nothing more
than debris.

peering at the edge of precipice
you will, despite everything,
see what is waiting for you.

and thus empty,
you will leap.

equinox

at last, a morning lunatic with heat,
when a bowl of cherries is high art.

at last, a vigorous spray of mint and rosebud
and the tease of citronella.

at last, the secret beachcombs for one magical seashell,
and all that is patient and electric.

at last, the year's grand and glorious incandescence,
the world waking into equinox.

last night, an angel mosquito feasted on my neck and drugged me
into summer.

nothing but donuts

if i can remember, on certain days,
to be kinder to myself
to not find my carelessness
so egregious
to not attempt
to right every wrong
i've managed to wreak in the last 24 hours.

if i can remember, on certain days,
that not every mistake i make
is noteworthy
or even noticeable,
and that i am doing the best i can
under the circumstances.

if i can remember, on certain days,
that i am terribly, irreversibly
fallible.
that my body is a moonscape of mystery
and that there will be days i will want nothing
but donuts.

if i can remember, on certain days,
that my lungs are a capable symphony
and i can give myself a haircut if i want
and i can go to bed early if i need
and i can make my own, messy version
of an apple pie

if i can remember, on certain days,
to dismiss the whining, the aching groans
discard the useless branches of impatience,
clear the lawn of worry
embarrassment
disappointment
and every rose thorn of guilt
i've ruthlessly pointed
at my own heart.

if i can remember
i am merely a collection of restless molecules
attempting
as best as i can
a semblance of order

if i can remember this,
believe me,
you can, too.

windowboxes

in another life
or city
this would be called
trespassing
poking your nose
where it doesn't belong.

but i am in this city
and this life
and today, feeling oddly at peace
in my taurean body,
and aware, for the first time,
of my desire to edit
this urban horticulture
i took the great plunge
dove into the mess
with the single thought
of making it better,
of prettifying a place that was not mine.
and discovered
what great reward it is
to pluck the dead flowers
from someone else's
windowboxes.

and though, with the dead stalks gone,
the remaining ones looked exposed,
susceptible to whatever harsh reality
had taken the rest of the plant away,
i wondered if the owner of these remaining flowers
would, now, with greater precision,
direct the watering can,
and if this new, naked space revealed, in fact,
that other, magnificent reality
of what was actually
quite possible again.

somehow, less distant

as a kind of challenge to herself
to gauge her time-keeping abilities
and find out how good she was
at sticking to deadlines
the woman decided to spend five whole minutes
on one kiss.

think about it.
three hundred seconds
focused on a mouth and one mouth only.

of course, the clock stopped ticking
at sixty.

the woman lost her footing altogether,
and stumbling, she saw that
even this slim acreage
could stretch to the length
of the moon.

so she paused, recalculated,
then unfastened herself
from calculation.

she became, instead,
a tentacle of patience,
as chartless as rain,

and the mouth,
resplendent moonscape,
opened to hers, distant
then, somehow, less distant.
and she gathered herself
for the long walk
home.

full

amazing
one night
after so much yearning
restlessness
ambivalence
wishful thinking
and spiraling disappointment
to discover
that your heart,
it turns out,
is actually quite
full
and that the day is ending
as you always thought it should
gently
a whisper of a close
a swish of damask on a cheek
a purr of a thing
something long deserved.

somehow
it is not a small thing
to accept
such quiet gifts,
to let the palm fall
flush against the belly,
and realize
this may be the one moment
you have absolutely everything
you've ever wanted.