what happened was

what happened was
that while you were extolling the virtues
of waffles and strong coffee,
across the bridge a small section of freeway
fell, caved in on itself, and though thank
God no one was killed and even the driver
of the big rig that caught on fire managed
to walk away, hail a taxi to the nearest hospital,
even though no permanent damage was done that day
you find it strange now, with the kind of hindsight
one gets after dramatic news stories, you find
the connection strange, that bridge separating
your breakfast from a freeway disaster,
you find it strange, the connection, any connection
really: the Virginia Tech shootings sidling up alongside
the beautiful spring day you woke up to that same morning;
the casualities of war rising at the same time
your own hopes are rising, something in your heart
steadied now, dependable; how, amid the larger shattering
of the planet you are finding fresh and lasting love.
and even though you want to be smart, stay alert,
learn to scan a campus or an airplane or a bus depot
with diligent acuity, you can't help your loose
and fuzzy cheerfulness, your eagerness to walk
the long, wide acreage of your one and only life.

luck

Sunday and it's gorgeous out. I'm thinking how good the waffles were this morning,
how perfectly ripe the strawberries turned out to be, how strong the coffee was, everything in a kind of culinary alignment. And soon, out the door to play tennis with my brother. Much-needed exercise. How happy that will make my body. How long it's been since I've given my body that gift. I'm thinking about movement and nutrition and positivity. I'm thinking that this is how I want to spend the week, if I can help it, if I can remember to do that, if I can look up once in awhile to see how lucky I am, if I can appreciate the day as a waiting piece of rich, good luck.

machinery

I tend forget that my body is like piece of machinery, with a limit to how much it can be pushed and pulled and thrown hither and thither. So I'm always surprised when it doesn't the work the way I expect, when there's an ache or a tightness or inflexibility that makes doing something more difficult. I tend to ignore it, or try to, thinking that the kinks will simply work themselves out and I'll be just like new again, bouncing back into the bones of the 12-year-old girl I imagine, in my mind's eye, perpetually inhabit. But maybe because it's spring, or maybe because I'm about to turn the big 3-5, or maybe it's that I'm finally getting it that I'm not indestructible, but right now, I feel like I need a serious tune-up, or an oil-change or one of those 50,000 mile check-ups, or maybe a few of my parts replaced.

salve

let me tell you about that curve in your neck,
such perfect, safe harbor.
let me remember your beautiful rough hands,
fresh from a garden, still clinging to their last
memory of soil, and the salve of your skin
on my bare cheek, a shoulder blade, the small acreage
of my knees. It is easy to sit here, on the couch,
fall back into the pillows, their simple pliancy,
and know what it is to feel comfort.
But it is not the same as tenderness. How even
in our most disconsolate hour, you keep me from shipwreck.
Just a fingertip, just a whisper of your eyes.

the path

What if "our path" was less about where our "journey" was taking us, and more about the actual ground we were already walking on? What if "the path" were city street, a backwoods trail, a bedroom carpet, an asphalt driveway leading us to our own front door. Maybe one day the path is a set of well-positioned, proportional flagstones, and the next it's an incoherent, discombobulated mess of pebbles, tossed pennies, dead leaves and trash. Maybe the path is the distance between our car and the mailbox. Or a grocery aisle on a weekend afternoon. Or the inches we lean into to give our love a kiss goodnight. Maybe "our path" is exactly where we are, right now, not where we think we "need" to be.

permission

Sometimes I feel like I'm waiting for some cosmic go-ahead, some ethereal message authorizing me to take the big leaps. And the thing is, I know no giant velvet curtain is magically going to part, no drum roll will sound, no spotlight will dramatically take the stage. So I wonder, what voice other than my own am I hoping to get permission from? Shouldn't that enough all by itself? Why am I not taking my own dreams seriously?

this and that

can you love order and want chaos at the same time?

breakthrough

lord knows what it was
that got me so angry on saturday
enough to say "fuck you"
enough to say "let me out"
my hand clawing at the door handle
my insides clawing at my insides
the terrible itch to leave
disappear, start over, erase
what was and what had been in favor
of getting the hell out of this car
this day, this love, i couldn't
take it, this one saturday, didn't want
what i'd spent so much time gathering in, building up,
furious at myself, suddenly, for doing all that work,
because where was it leaving me anyway
if it could be fucked up so easily
and i wondered, would it always be this way,
the closeness, the tying together, the deep
mysterious magnetism that kept two people
orbiting, the warmth, the fine romance, the gooey sex,
the relief and gratitude and simplicity of falling asleep
each night under the same blanket, all of that cut,
unintelligibly, in two, my heart cleaving just like that,
the language i thought i'd been translating so well
suddenly untranslatable, my own words and signals,
which had been received so smoothly, now catching
bad airwaves, faulty wiring, interference of every kind
and why that would make me so angry
who knows, but there i was, furious, fuck-you furious,
clawing at the car door furious, my whole body mutinous,
feeling punished, macerated, torn down from the
pretty picture i'd been carrying, feeling betrayed,
broken into shards,

how is that possible, just a moment, really,
a tiny fragment of time, and yet
so whole, so complete, so monumentally proportionate
i couldn't help but fall under the spell of my own fury.

so how can i explain what brought me back,
how impossible it was, that fleeting patch of light
which somehow held on and pulled me in again
toward home.

next

sometimes I wish I knew what was going to happen next.
other times I'm relieved that I don't.

clear picture

there are days when i have no clear picture where i'm going. i just go.