whisper

how you lay your cheek against mine in the dark,
slid a soft hand behind my neck,
bent so close to my ear, I could feel how deeply
you were breathing.

you said nothing,
not even a whisper,

but I knew exactly
what you meant.

I wanted the birds to tell me something.

I wanted the birds to tell me something.
Two birds, pre-coital, on the wire,
their wings in a frenzy, while we ate,
nearly silent, on the deck.

I chuckled at their brief but passionate display,
the metronomic tilt the wire made
as they whipped through their routines.

I thought about how simple love is
for certain creatures. How sometimes all it takes
is to say "I see you. Do you see me, too?"

The birds didn't stay long, through two or three bites
of steak, our forks scraping the white plates,
but sometimes it's brevity that's most exquisite,
that leaves the deeper mark.

I didn't know whether, later, your hand
would reach for mine, or if I would call your name
with new tenderness.

I wanted the birds to tell me something,
but they flew away so quickly, and the wire, eventually,
returned to itself, and I finished
the last of my dinner, still
a little hungry.

untitled

It’s not that that the world will snap into place
like a Tinker Toy or a long buried puzzle piece
rummaged, at last, from behind an ancient
cushion. It’s not that the fruit will fall from the tree
at its pinnacle of ripeness and leap, plump and perfect,
into your waiting hands. It’s not that the line will part
or the gridlock evaporate or the fog fissure into
clarity. It’s not that October will segue into bright blue
summer. This is not how it works. The light at the end of the tunnel
needs a tunnel.