22/30: from silver to blue(for aunt anna)

tears carry the words
past weathered corneas
and morning turns from silver to blue
part of this heart
jump-started by instant coffee
soars on silence
breaking time
back to the last time
you held my hand

you were shorter than me
by a foot
but the loudest voice in the room
you cut through angst
as one can cut muscle from leg bones
teaching me that love is firm
but constant and easier
when we slice down to what matters
your voice ringing like calls to service

i never got to ottawa
though i did try
maybe that was why i cried
thinking i was one more promise possibly unkept
after you gave me so many
in one last clasp of hands
before you and the family went back north
with the wave of the leaves

but
these days
you teach me that real love doesn't leave
when mornings turn from silver to blue
and the blinking of the sun that warms
tells us never to forget you.

9/30: haiku 4.9.14

when the pain washes
you ashore in dreams, find my
embrace in the sand

6/30: how to sever ties with a boxcutter

i am practicing with tears
tugging at the corner of my smile
like newborns testing their grip
a newly created art

'how to sever ties with a boxcutter'

there are lesson plans
tinged with frailty
left in the empty spaces
ringed with promises left like broken furniture

they bear the crust of insecurity
hold familiar fingerprints
from family members, lovers indifferent and insensitive
and other villains assorted by sodium content

i've found myself practicing
from time to time
to cut these tendons that tie me
to all these instances

because if i am to run
into a sun-strewn promise land
that i am crafting by grit, love and deeds
i have to cut precisely

and leave the hurt to sit cold on asphalt
like so many shells of sunflower seeds.

3/30: vertigo of a mature lover

the lush latitude
in her upper arms outstretched
fingernails with electric polish chipped at the edges
by seizing life by its throat

kisses delivered
by the semaphore found
in the finely ground coral and cinnamon
when her lips pucker

the fine mane tossed from side to side
when she argues
when she makes cursing lyrical
or when she duels with the shaking of a speakerbox

she comes to give you light-headedness
the vertigo of a mature lover
somehow giving you balance
with mischief as her perfume

1/30: hoarders facing springtime

shoulder blades
left to flex concave
as the lungs begin the eviction process

alkaline and sodium
bound together with water
see themselves out in the chill of the dawn

we
be the beasts with too many burdens
hoarders of future fears and past regrets

rag-pickers and bag ladies
toting luggage that gets seen before
our honest hearts do

we
rip tendons like flimsy window blinds
and shutter our eyes from the sun

tuck away those hurts
in shopping bags stuffed and bursting
on weathered oak within the chest

when the springtime
that demands you pack light
to dance in the golden grace you know the steps to

will you still cling to the bags
will you still cling to these bags
will you still carry that weight

or, will you let it slip from your shoulders