seeing you


the touch on my arm
hasn’t changed in
the years spent trying
to forget it.

right into all that lay
dormant, the tether
resurrected and
the ease of you came

back, filling in cracks
that had come with
another attachment
not nearly so deep.

I will not miss you
any more. but
you will move over
me like fire still

when the pilot light
has blown out.

right now


April buds out-
soon soft new leaves
find life again
outside of their
winter hiding.

I feel the change,
seen through stained glass,
the cycle starts,
slumber flakes off,
edges soften.

Towers built to
protect against
frozen landscapes
let draw bridges
down in relief.

All is right now.

best intentions


The night is not long enough
to hold all that is meant to
be.
I hold on for as long as I
can before sand creeps
in
to the corner of the blue eyes
that hold you in high esteem
still.
The wine on my tongue stains,
clouding any natural thought
left
of how we could get on and
still find ourselves in this
world,
the getting on being the bit 
the hardest to realize, truly
so.
On the telly a movie plays
that we saw ages ago
when
we loved each other in spite
of what anyone else might have
known.
Love. It knew us by our first names
and held us tight in a firm
embrace,
safe from looters or rascals
trying to steal our best intentions.

pride


clouds umbrelled the shore
as we walked on along
sea shells and weeds pulled
in by a storm tide.
this is the house of the
fisherman who tried
to help papi save his boat,
and this is the river from
where the mud flows into
the ocean making it brown.
littered with pink and pearl
shards of something to pick up,
we leave footprints in the sand.
this is my beautiful island, she says.
being of the place, from it,
planted firmly in its mountains
where the sugar cane grew,
the orange of the flamboyan florishes.
plant a seed in the clay and in a year,
a tall palm grows, shade for coqui,
whose rythmed chirps measure moments.
this is her island, its beauty
marked in her way and flight
across the sands that welcome
waves of life from shores beyond.



6:49 p.m.


the sky still holds its blue
as the sun chews a piece
of orange into the horizon.
eighteen years now
I’ve run up this street
lined on each side with
brown-bricked buildings
like beefeaters protecting
my movement  home
to the vintage apartment
that is called so as the edges
of it aren’t quite edges,
and the dust has collected
to hold a living silhouette.
eighteen years, where did they go,
I’ve come and gone so many
days and nights and in betweens,
the door handle is loose
from so many turns.
the light dims as the threshold
meets my soul. the ghost will
surely meet me tonight, restless
from waiting for the sun
to digest and give over to night.
eighteen years, where did they go?
Olha died many years ago,
and Herbert too, who brought me
candies from a foreign trip.
they were next to me, below me,
the sun is only waiting to set
to find me all alone so that
he can take me down too.



save the watch


in the end,
you tell me, it is
the thing you save,
though you don’t wear
a watch, ever.

I imagine you
sunk to the neck
in her- and also the other,
holding your wrist
out of the muck
to save the gold.

knowing this,
as you seem
to be near full
to the gill of me,
I see it held out-
safe from the mire.

not time,
but your self
is what gets the lifeline.
I wonder if this once,
you’d let it go
and see that it is me
that needs the reach.

I am the watch that needs saving.

spring


maybe,
when evening arrives,
you’ll draw the shade
and indulge.
certainly an orange can be juicy,
and an apple sweet,
but my offering will restore
with a taste of its own.