A Letter
to Paul
You're
nearing 50 now.
Rifling through a box of pencils,
desperate for Cupid's dart.
Lay your chest hair
to the frost of singles bars
and any bridge you think
might lace that journey's end,
tie the shoes of inner bliss,
knot them for eternity.
Every night
a maple branch
beats against the window pane.
Spell it either way you want.
I'm captured by your shadow talk
in cyberspace italicizing aching hole.
Love is cotton, never wool.
It floats, not grates.
It frees, not seals us off from wind.
Think of
it this way:
you put a screw in a cloud
or pulse or steam--
attaching just ain't possible.
Moisture has to land itself,
cover earth in shaving cream
of unexpected winter snow.
The
Brink
So much
and so little changed as you aged.
Skin pursed its layers and sighed, relaxed
like a tea bag blooms inside a cup.
Your weight dropped quietly
as if hunger had eased.
Standing was a stoop,
a rare burst of courage
at brink of leap to somewhere
past the blanketed bed.
My visits swelled as matter cliques
for I never knew when
cheeks of flowered radishes
would brown and droop, return to earth.
Seeing was less important than sight.
Listening louder than uttered words.
"The End"
just sat--
a face print in a pillow's meat.
You had no room, no energy
to juggle all those dulcet balls
with solstice right around the bend.
I'd make an awful racket
over little things:
how much food was in the fridge.
Filling up the empty racks
like gamblers feed a slot machine.
I'd comb your hair, lotion hands,
as if you were going out on the town
to dazzle streetlights with your eyes.
I'd clip your toenails carefully,
pretend they weren't just
rotting shingles on a roof.
Buff their edges, polish moons,
as if I were a potter's wheel,
as if they were my clay to glaze.
Copyright © 2000 Janet I. Buck
