We sit across the booth
a feast between us
and I look in your eyes
and see longing and space and calm
and the gift of being able to fully be
just myself. Earlier you told me
you have good hands
when I stroked your back a little
and I said, you don’t know
the full extent of that,
and you said, I’m sure, and even though
I was not seeing your face
I heard the smile in your voice..
We move toward one another so slowly
on my part, not daring to risk
what I know will be a real connection
with an advance that overwhelms
your energetic spaces.
You drop me back at my house
and I lean into the window
of your car and kiss you
and as I walk to my door,
my energy surges up toward
the cloudy night sky
and I feel you still behind me
sitting in your car.
and I wonder, what do you see.
I have so much to learn
about taking in your compliments
and letting them reside in my muscles
and skin and bones and mind
and, heart, their true home.

You said, you look nice

I had been sitting at your kitchen table
so much like ones two generations past
cutting onions, then celery, then
red bell peppers, then parsley
the scent of each a cloud around me
putting them in the pot, adding
tomatoes and spices
starting the rice, sipping wine with you
at the end, putting in the shrimp
bringing the bowl of Creole to you
at your table, candles and music

And you look at me, radiance
streaming from your face
so immensely beautiful and strong
and vulnerable and afraid to meet my eyes
and tell me that I look nice

These moments when all else falls away
and we are just present
your hand in mine, fingers curled
around the others, pulling slightly
and I have to ask you to unpack
what it means that I look nice
but of course I already know
I just want to hold your voice in that moment
our language a creole,
both body and heart
languages mixed in one
sometimes even
with common vocabulary

Later I wake predawn, sobbing
from a dream of loss
not knowing really, but something old
passing through me, throat constricted
stomach drawn up
you move in your sleep and place
your arm across me, tears streaming
into my ears, your slow
sleep breathing in my ear.
The room gets light, birds singing
your face, differently radiant
in the dawn light
whatever passed through is gone
and now there is the day, our work
and the unforgotten feel
of your fingers in mine
the wood of your table against my wrist

at first I couldn’t place
the feeling stealing through me
the placement of the energy, in my chest
the relaxing of my shoulders
and then I recognized it
for what it was: joy
joy infusing my skin
joy sneaking into my heart
joy staying with me

there is nothing of easy grace
about this joy, it is hard won
nights and afternoons and mornings
of weeping, moments and days of despair

and then I see your eyes, and yours
hear the voice of each one I love
read the messages of dear friends
feel your hand in mine, each of you
that has held my hand through darkness

joy has no end
joy I leave with you
the greatest of these is joy

Is the couch
purple, you said
Eggplant, I said
and laughed
Everything the ex used
in decorating the house
was a food color
walls lemon and tangerine
lettuce in the bedroom
She did all the cooking
because after a while
I grew weary of the food critic
never taking a break
You sit at my table
and say, this tastes good
If I had ever
ever
heard that when I was with her
you wouldn’t be here now
I’m glad, so glad, for the pain
that with you I now get to heal

You lie looking at the ceiling
silent, somewhere else

as you said
you’re sad most times

there’s a wall
down the space between us
maybe the great one
scent of star anise in the air
or maybe not Chinese
but more Berlinesque
graffiti and tango music
indistinctly heard

I reach up and take away
one brick

there are lots of them
but I have forever

The past intrudes in odd ways
mostly, with reason, that now
everything I say is filtered
through a lens of my past
indiscretions and hurtfulness
the pain I have caused you
as much as I would desire
my dear lover, to start fresh
fresh isn’t happening, it can’t
and so I say something
that again is a fuck-up
and we get crossed
and I am irritable
and, oh lover, that is the last
way I ever, ever want to be
with you, when what I desire
is your skin alongside mine
and your mouth on mine
and your heart to mine

How can I unwind all this
so that what passes between us
is what truly is, and not
my imagined versions of past hurts
amplified into today?

It always and only starts
with my attention, my intention
and when I am solid in that
as solid as I desire to be
as solid as you have been
then I will no longer, I dare hope
speak anything to you
but my heart’s deepest truth.

I said
I have been building a room
four walls, floor and ceiling
a room where you can be
enclosed by me;
and you have been going in
and out of the door
for months now.
We have been dancing around
this, that you are mine fully;
that it is your surrender
that I most desire.

Today, I said, today
is the day to decide:
Will you come into my room
and let me make a place
where your soul can explode
in spectacular blossoms
where you can become
your best self?

You were silent for a very
very long time
my hand laying against your scalp
grasping your hair
breathing slowly in your ear as
your body trembled.
I said your body knows the truth of this
You said, all this is in your head,
that’s not enough, I need to feel
your passion.
So I drew you against me, hard,
your nipples grazing my arm
still holding your head
and my leg over yours
against your heat
and I said, is this what you need?

You were silent for a very
very long time
and when I had nearly decided
my holding space and labor,
my self-work to build a room
of integrity and clarity
were in vain, you said
quietly,
Okay.

Knowing that you lost everything
in a flood last fall, knowing it in my head
but then seeing it with my own eyes
seeing how little of the past is there
that you have a couch and a bed
and the rest might fit into a dozen boxes
with room left over, breaks my heart, and then you say,
well, most of it needed to go

what I desire, my lover
is that there will be the same
overwhelming flood between us
that all the things we know we need
to dismantle, put out on the curb
to be hauled away forever
will get washed away in the irresistible power
of the love we have now

I wish the women in my life
vibrant and alive, one and all
would see themselves to be
as radiant as I see them

I wish everyone who feels shamed
for being older than the magazines
would look at their beautiful, well-loved hands
and see how many lives they have touched

I wish the friends who doubt their actions
and wonder if they will carry the day
would see themselves as competent
and stand up, today, just a bit straighter

I wish the children who sit alone
because they are different
would rise up and shout
look at me, I am glorious

I wish the old man
standing on the corner
had a son to come
and gently lead him home

I wish all the horror
and pain of the world
would vanish
and joy would flood our hearts

I wish that I did not have to ever
wish any of these wishes

sometimes we can’t talk easily
but this time, lying together
the words came,
and I asked, did you desire me
you said, my desire isn’t much there
for anyone

you apologized, more than once
for how things are with you right now
but oh, my sweetest love,
that is so unneeded, all that I want
is you, however you are

your head on my shoulder
your eyes gazing at mine
your hair against my face,
sweet from the shower;
and to know that
as much as you do anywhere

you have a place in my house
my closet, my bed, my heart;
and that now it is only a few days
until I feel again your hair
against my face, smell again
the scent of your shampoo