No snow

Without the snow
we rise above the lake in a fog
contemplating a long spring
and a longer summer
rosebuds and crickets
and long walks
talking, and figuring out
what happened last winter
in the snow

The holidays can be brutal

One day after a couple argues
she, a carving novice
hacking into roast turkey
he
with a cranberry stain
in the middle of his chest

The dining room swirling before her
into a painting by Dali
hearing his voice far away
something about irony. How
he thinks it means something

As her knife falls
and clatters
she says,
‘stop talking’

Making friends

You are a stranger, now
not overlooking my own
peculiarities. And
we walk about
barely knowing one another

(despite matching scars
like ties and shoes)

Then, the fog lifts. And
I can see your face
as you open your very depths
in the sunshine
getting at the heart of you

All my reasons

He left wearing his game face
past adobe archways
and mid-century balconies
all the broken pottery
threatening to pour down
on his sore head
passing a row of casement windows
whilst shaking off yesterday
and all my reasons

I insulated my boudoir
my heriot paid in full
the first time I died–
a coat of arms on every wall
with something to prove. But
my vassalage is for life, and
all the dried flowers littering
the base of hoary shrines
are no proof that my heart
is on his sleeve

He replied to my missive with sadness
his papers clearly had been wet first
then dried
still unsure how to tell him
that I am enclaved here
where melancholy is indigenous
and I stay, I stay
where no predator will yank me thus
so long as this undeserved forest
shelters me

Hard Liquor

I thought I could take it down like a man
a grimace at the end and an exhale of appreciation
groomed on wine spritzers, after
being schooled on middle-aged men
at twenty-two, you

were a new cocktail, mixed up
shaken, stirred, and muddled
too many bitters for all the girls to go for you
with an undercurrent of loss and hope
I drank you too quickly, we

left in a stupor, stumbling
through years before once more
dusting off the bottle, the cork
breaking off in pieces until we shoved it in hard
to get at the elixir that would bring us back