The Physics of Love

Impossible to distinguish

where you end and I begin.

The laws of nature bind us:

Gravity pulls us to each other;

Time cannot break us apart.

We are an exercise in physics,

a continuum of inseparable feelings,

quarks connected at the subnuclear level.

We are infinite in our desire;

finite in our commitment.

Like a Möbius strip,

even when we are miles from each other,

we are still unendingly together.

Judgment Day

Turn about is fair play.

That he should do to me what I once did to him,

when once my prying eye whipped like a tornado

through boxes, drawers, and closets

searching for the ashes of a smoldering fire

that I knew I must extinguish

with a few well-placed and bitter tears.

And now, my search

only a vain and ancient attempt

to secure my place in his heart,

he rifles through my clutter and finds a clue

that entices him to seek that much further,

to interrogate me

with aching, hurtful evidence in hand.

How can I answer the probing stare,

the angry reproach?

For yes, I am guilty.

It is true that I betrayed him,

that I harbored a decaying corpse,

not yet fully bone,

buried in the casket with all my silent mementos,

accumulating dust and other motes.

Perhaps it was the smoking embers

of my own little fire

that begged me to suspect him,

that urged me to sniff for smoke

where there was none.

The punishment for my unrealized suspicion

is the revelation of my own true sin,

and the consequences will disable my heart

like a blackened clot,

an ailment for which there is no swift cure.

Designs

I love design.

I can design anything.

Need a landscape?

How about a dress?

A business card?

A Web site perhaps?

I have lots of designs.

I even have designs

on you.

Dragonfly Days

A lifetime ago in dragonfly days,

the still air was eased by a breeze

like a breathful gift

from the puckered lips of a god.

The wonder of you alive

in the sweet and grassy scent,

was carried aloft like a dream

on a velvety butterfly’s wing.

You were there; now you’re gone.

And the shiny blue fliers

continue to buzz by

over a sea of summer mustard

that waves like a prayerful song,

seeking the door to heaven

in note after note without end.

Laughing In The Present Tense

Nineteen seventy-nine became

an English exercise

in studying past perfect tense,

precariously parsed

by a dedicated student,

who came to understand

that yesterday's anguish

and bittersweet decay

would one day be sacrificed

in favor of learning

to laugh in the present tense.

The Shirt

Two o’clock in dreamy dark

and I pace from stove to sink

until I see it waiting for me

crumpled over a kitchen chair.

The shirt.

I bury my nose in its raggedness

and inhale you,

one chambray thread at a time.

The frayed blue cuffs,

the missing button,

picnics in the pines.

Speckles of rust and paint,

knocking around the house,

bagels in bed on Sunday.

And the pinhole tear –

I mended it, even though I knew

you were gone.

But I still have it.

The shirt.

Long Division

We never could add or multiply.

We struggled with subtraction,

off and on.

But we became experts

at breaking things down

and dividing the spoils.

The one thing

we did so well together

was mastering long division.

Marital Misfits

We do not fit.

We can talk

but not to each other.

We can make love

but instead we have sex.

We can do anything

but we feel nothing.

We are not forever.

In The Wires

He can hear it in the wires,

in the endless buzz and hum

of power lines,

a message coming through.

More voices

speaking an alien language,

words from the Pleiades –

or maybe they’re from Mars.

He isn’t really sure.

But they speak to him,

sometimes all at once

and then he gets confused.

So he puts on the hat

of tin foil and string

and ties it neatly under

his bearded double chin.

Temporary relief.

The mother ship is coming,

will probably land nearby,

and he needs to be ready.

So he packs his cart

with all his worldly goods

including unopened bottles

of magical pills and potions

that silence all the voices.

But he knows, he knows

that he must listen,

that he must be vigilant.

For he is the chosen one

and the words,

the words must come through.

The Violin

On a tarnished brass hook, dangling

from an age-old string, hanging

on the wall, beside the piano,

for too many years, gathering

a layer of dust

and a smattering

of worthy memories we created

whenever you bent the strings for me

and I warbled sweetly for you

and even then we were in tune

like a carefully orchestrated melody.

WYSIWYG

I am a model.

I am a homeless woman.

I am what I am at the moment.

Chameleons change by the hour.

I could be a famous artist –

and I would look the part.

Picture me in my black garb,

handmade scarf, dangling earrings,

even funky purple shoes.

My fashionable skin covering up reality.

(Looks don’t really count anyway, do they?)

It’s all about camouflage,

body makeup for the one

who tries so hard to be

all things to all people.

Expect and perceive as you will.

I never disappoint.

Tomorrow Today

It is always tomorrow that sings to me

until today stops by and waggles

an angry finger admonishing me

for being so ill-prepared

to receive whatever it has brought my way.

Today appears without a warning;

look up and there it stands,

shaking me out of my nostalgia,

and challenging me to face the unknown

again and again, and again,

each time no different than the last.

Caretaker of My Heart

You are the caretaker of my heart,

keeper of my jealous rage,

one who listens and hears --

all at the same time;

feeds me,

nourishes my hungry spirit,

warms my durable feet,

puts me on a pedestal,

adores me --

as only a goddess should be adored.

You are my lover,

the perfect complement to my soul;

companion and fellow sufferer

who rises above it all

and saves me from myself.

Shoe Story

We are a pair of old loafers,

insanely worn,

floppy and out-of-shape.

Souls full of holes.

Two heels run down

from years of dragging,

waiting to find

suitable replacements.

Intersection and Impasse

You raise questions

better left dead.

Probing deeply,

I beg for answers

but reach an impasse,

a dark and vicious

blind alley.

Mugged by one question

then another, and another.

And now I am struck,

wounded and paralyzed,

frozen in the intersection

at Memory and Reality,

two careless, unpaved roads

winding around

the who-we-weres

and the what-we're-nots,

detouring past the who-I-was

and dead-ending

at the what-I-have-become.

Two-Story House

I=m packing up the old red tote

and the big black suitcase on wheels

with what few shreds I think are safe

to call my very own.

And you can have the toaster,

and the TV and stereo too.

I=ll take the cats because they are mine

in my heart, and I feed them, you know.

Although I=m sure you would disagree

and say they love you more.

We never see eye-to-eye on anything,

so why should the cats be any different?

We=ve been living in a two-story house

for years; your story and mine.

When I say black, you say white.

It reminds me of that childhood game

where you whisper a story around a circle

and it comes back all twisted and changed.

That=s us in a nutshell.

Whatever we do, we see it in opposite ways.

Two stories, two sides to everything.

Yours and mine.

I took my car and everything else I had

before we married.

And again, I take the cats.

But to you I leave the furniture,

including our angry bed.

Goodbye to the two-story house.

Your DNA

My bed is a soft and cozy Petri dish,

a home for your valuable genetic material

that I so highly value.

You are always with me,

inside and out.

I inhale your essence as I sleep,

and when I wake,

whenever I wake,

you and your DNA sample

are still there,

incubating between the rumpled sheets.

The Sword

Only my pen is mightier

than the double-edged sword

by which I live,

by which I will die.

And die alone.

For the sword cuts both ways

and the choice for freedom

comes at a price.

Think and do as I please.

Sleep alone at night.

And when I am gone,

no issue in my stead.

Just the stiff, yellowing pages –

the jumble of words

aligned in a row,

the labyrinth of shapes,

the ochres and the madders –

lingering, fading, moldering away,

quiet reminders of my choice,

and the sharpness of the blade.

Blue Hope

Peeking out from the listless gloom

of monotonous gray cloud cover,

is an island of vivid blue,

promising a fleeting chance

for hope

in an otherwise lackluster moment

when the universe simply

refuses to shine.

A Scrap Of Paper

A wrinkled scrap of paper,

the ink cradling words so desperate,

written by one too weak to speak

her ultimate prayer out loud.

Gnarled fingers, hooky and claw-like,

manipulate the little plea

between the rough-hewn stones

and tightly into the rocky crevice.

"I hope that you can hear this,"

she whispers hoarsely to the dusty wall.

If only she were in Jerusalem

instead of five thousand miles away

in her tiny, weed-ridden backyard.

A Gift Above Emeralds

Clocks tick-tick so slowly,

marking off the milestones

of miracles and stolen moments,

of fleeting halcyon days;

then chime full force

with a raucous clamor –

"You snooze, you lose, you fool!"

No one sees it coming

so wrapped up in the moment,

except of course for the greying ones

who nod and shake their heads,

drowning in nostalgic words

they heard so long ago:

"Are we there yet?"

Sorry, too late, it’s over.

It’s gone, it faded fast,

all those misspent moments,

those pieces of yesterday,

the ever-elusive elements

of mystical, magical Time.

It scurries like a rabbit

down the bunny hole,

gone in the blink of an eye.

Time, a gift above emeralds,

to choose, to cherish, to honor,

to use with the greatest wisdom.

Discover it now and savor it,

and never waste it away,

for Time, in all its glory,

once gone will not visit again.

Garden Cathedral

A grove of pines and cypress

forms a rugged garden cathedral,

shadowing the dewy forest,

as the rising sun spreads its

cherry pink and apple red stains of light

through the leafy windows

of the darkly needled canopy.

I worship in this perfect landscape

dwelling in freeform harmony

amidst the bees and butterflies,

the hummingbirds and beetles,

the squirrels and the deer

that gather for their morning rite

on the banks of a singing creek

at the rocky altar of the universe.

Hard Drive

My brain.

A biological hard drive.

Programs and files competing for space,

errors in the media abound.

But I can’t run defrag or scandisk

to make the glitches go away.

So I try to think and reason and act

with as much clarity as I can,

until the day –

and I know it is coming –

when an error message stops me cold

and I cannot ever reboot.

An Unbeliever Like Me

This must be a miracle,

or else I’m in a dream.

It all seems so impossible

to an unbeliever like me.

I can’t help looking

for the fly in the ointment,

the bug in the program,

the trap-door at my feet.

Too good to be true

are the only words known

to an unbeliever like me.

Everything I wanted?

My wishes all come true?

I take none of this for granted

but still I have to wonder,

if it’s really really real,

or if it’s merely wishful thinking,

that good fortune could ever last.

Perhaps it’s all a glorious plan,

this unexpected treasure.

Maybe it will defy my qualms

and drain the skeptic voice

that murmurs pessimistically

to my faithless self,

to the unbeliever that I am.

Bugged

Unholy creatures scamper

around the cranium cavern

screaming at me so loud,

so incredibly loud.

And a scratchy whisper

tickles at me, non-stop,

warning "get out now,

get out before it’s too late."

Cobwebs in my eyes so I don’t see

the ornery bugs that buzz in my ears

and lay eggs in my brain.

What went before was the mutant enemy,

thrashing my skin and raking my hair

with its yellow-stained fangs.

Now it’s only worms left –

the maggots – everywhere,

churning masses I eat

when I dream of cockroaches

that flutter from the cracks

in the water-stained plaster

and crawl into every obscure little orifice

where they rest and reproduce themselves

and add to the intensity

of the spiking pain in my head.

Something under the bed

is chewing all night,

gnawing on some long-dead,

hard brown carcass.

If it grates its teeth any louder

I will seek it out

and feed it to the shiny black widow

behind the toilet

who eats the unsuspecting.

Some day her wicked venom

will course through my cursed veins

and I will become the creatures

that inhabit me.