Together Back Out the Door

My life
was a coffee stain
on the living
room carpet
just inside
the front door,
but you were
fresh laundered
bed sheets
sprinkled
with baby powder.

I was pinch
your nose and
take your medicine,
you were
coffee and beignets
at the Cafe Du Monde
on a sexy
sultry morning
and knowing looks
across the table.

I stayed in
and read books
you danced
in flimsy silk
nothings
in the summer
rain
urging me along.

Together
we were stifled
moaning
in the coat room
at a strangers
New Years Eve
party
and laughter
as we
slipped back
out the door.

Back

Sometimes I
dream
forward but
mostly
go back

and it is
always cold
sweat and
silent screams
that wake
me.

My whole
life
can be
summed up
with a
cheap trick
and a smart-ass
one-liner.

I only seek
what anyone
would,
if they were
honest
with themselves -

an honorable death.

But I
cannot recall
the texture
of honor.

She always stayed.

Some days listening
to upbeat hillbilly tunes
he'd smile a wrinkled grin
and be dumb
at how sprung she had
made him,
but then the smile
remained,
and he remembered
how damn good
she had made him feel
on better days.

He would think of the others:
the lesbians, and the catfish,
the ones with ten perfect toes
and how none could live up
to faded freckles on her nose,

and he would smile
some more and go back
to her.

Remembering late
night poetry
on glowing cell phone screen

and later how he had thought
he might die pining
as pathetic as a teen.

He would smile and put her away,
to enjoy another day.
Again and forever
just like she had always stayed.

For Sally Graham

She had a face
that said golden,
southern girl,
and eyes
that smiled
at how much
smarter
she was
than the rest
of the world
though she
would never
say it.

It would never
pass her
cherubic lips.

I can imagine
that she might
weep at
renaissance paintings
but doubt
that a mortal man
could cause the same.

Gemini's daughter
captures me
in a spell
then releases me
just as quickly
and laughs,
and I am forced
to laugh with her,
her charm is such.

Having conquered
stage and small screen,
the tallest of Gotham,
and been courted
by Kings
on faraway continents,
who am I
to love her.

Someday maybe,
though,
I will try.