Christina

We picked up where we had left off.

I was walking past and I was late.

Kyra was in the doorway, you were inside.

The least I could do was say hello.

Or was it the most I would do?

You might have been washing something with a rag.

And I was nearly back out the door,

and I remembered in an instant

where we’d been a moment ago, just the evening before.

You were dancing with a broom.

Were you wearing your gray boots?

Your tights were maroon, or where they mauve?

I asked you quite briskly

and you answered as if you’d been thinking

about the very question that was in my mind.

You would be dancing at the Chateau

with the drag queens, I can’t be expected

to remember everything but your face.

I could see that you would be dancing in your face

and your body language surely agreed.

And then I asked again today, as I paused,

because I wanted to know,

did you go dancing after you closed

last night after all?

And you held out your hands,

at the ends of your arms,

they were both marked

and your face sparkled like rubies

or maybe colored glass.

And happy, I turned,

and hurried to my thing,

and all was more than I expected –

and less, and so it seemed

I should stop on my way back.

I walked through the door.

I think you again held the broom in your hands,

I couldn’t read in your eyes

what you were thinking,

but I saw them as you stepped towards me

and then so gracefully past me,

you stepped past my right shoulder.

I was sorely disappointed

that there were no more brownies,

I had been thinking of yesterday’s

bowl of ganache.

But you were kind and warmed up a muffin,

it was chocolate – you gave me ice water

in a glass as I had asked.

I didn’t need to watch you sweeping

across the dirty hardwood floor,

I mostly didn’t, you were in some thought,

it seemed from my glance

you were still thinking

of the dance.

I am almost sure you were wearing your gray boots

at the ends of your slender legs.

I would have watched you dancing the night before last

and maybe I did.

Your steps more quiet and surely,

more lively than I could imagine,

but I do, all the time,

and not only about you

and those two paired gray boots,

and what in your face I am looking for.

Perhaps you would be surprised,

to see what I feel inside.

I cannot go slowly enough,

and the time hastens on.

So there was something in her soft cheek

and then under his bald head at the thing,

that I was in time to see after all.

Then after you were there,

the night I had walked was so fair,

I rhymed but a little

and noted something quite else,

that I saw you dancing,

in my measured plodding mind.

Of course, that is only an expression,

hiding the truth,

while showing another,

but the  truth is lacking in color

what the ice water is lacking in flavor.

And we feel we are all doing something

at the ends of our dancing legs.

The coda awaits.

I’ve been waiting all week for tomorrow.

It’s tonight now, after all.

I will be hiding in plain sight

on the sidewalk.

And you will be frozen in place.

You’re face will be painted white

and you shall not speak a word,

but everything you love

shall be revealed.

I should stop,

but I am in a hurry.

There’s a thing

and yet your face

is watching me, but not as much as we think,

there is more and less there too,

and our body language sometimes lies.

We know, really we guess,

and our eyes touch

and look away,

already we are ahead of our time

and behind.

But we are not always

and we are not never,

We have moments when our

feet and our eyes are in time.

 

Gutter

I took a short stroll this morning,

onto a beaten path,

there were two inches of

rushing water,

cool, but not cold on my feet.

The rain came down.

I carried an umbrella.

I’m not entirely daft,

but I prefer it
to the alternative.

 

Wobble in the walk

Did you ever go clear?

I’m just sitting here in the shade, an occasional breeze, people walking by, wondering if I could just stop trying to figure everything out.

I got two hands for everything – the one hand and the other - but I want an answer that is simple. I want to be easy in my mind.

Let’s go with song lyrics, Mr. Simon. When something goes right, I’m the first one to admit it, and the last one to know.

Mindfulness. Just let the thoughts come to you. Look at reality, the people on the sidewalk, the baby in the buggy. One thing at a time. Or two.

Two young men crossing the street. Why should one, hands in his pocket, be laughing and talking at the same time?

It’s a crazy world. Boy walks down the street, got a short span of attention.

But surely I would not be convicted of jury of my peers.

Kid with the orange shoes, black swoosh. He’s got a wobble in his walk. Sounds vaguely familiar. I mean the line. But I don’t recall that line. Doesn’t really matter. I’ve been using words I picked up from other people for years.

But I’m just sitting here in the shade, an occasional breeze, people walking by.

It all begins to sound like a song to me now.

I guess I don’t have to put it all together.

But I wonder whatever happened to the guy with the lime green T-shirt, the orange shoes, who walked with the wobble in his walk as he laughed and talked at the same time.