Writing in the Dark, and: Voc Rehab, and: A Good Day (1), and: Company, and: Lonely in the House of Love

Writing in the Dark

What was the light like-carnival or massacre?Leaves shown like spun gold in the live oak canopy.

And these pale attendings-angels, physicians, witnesses?Brimstones, orangetips, sulfurs, whites.

A murder of crows rowed in until the sky was a blue eye   blackened.Someone had forced the paperwhites into out-of-season bloom.

Perhaps all beauty is criminal. One could make that argument.No one means to be mean, only kindness doesn't pay.

I've already betrayed the moths for garish butterflies.As at the confluence of two rivers, one languid, one all hurtling   speed . . .

Underwater it's hard to hear the ringing of the phone.

Voc Rehab

Once my hands, dispirited, unemployed,hung about the house like down-sizedcorporate jocks or hormone hopped-up teens,out of sorts with the worldand from themselves irreconcilably estranged.

Desperate for something to do,they contemplated crochet,arts & crafts, brain surgery,complicated recipes; covetedthe comfort of a ritual:a book of old-fashioned matches,cigarette paper, tobacco pouch, orthe finer arts of crime: sneakthief,counterfeiter, pickpocket, safebreak,but in the end could only musterprodigious mastery of remote controland the shameful, short-lived solaceof compulsive cuticle mutilation.

Now, cocooned inside your Ford Explorer,our forearms kiss on the console,palm to palm, our fingers intertwine,graze knuckles, caress the little crotches;thumbs firmly knead calluses and pads,trace the rivers flowing through the hand:lifeline, loveline, destiny,the intricate lacework at the wrist;the smooth back of the handshivers with a kiss-epigastric rising, flippy-do.

More than the quenchless skinit is the hands' insatiable hungerthat astounds me again and again:the hover and perch and glideof your fluttering small bird hands,the dawn song I wake to,is stilled only by sleep.I am making of your bodythe most intricate map imaginable;moment by moment, my diligent fingers work at loosening the hard knots of your living,unriddling every last secretfrom your skin's obscure Braille,inscribing its ample surfacewith the epic of forty years.

A Good Day (1)

If comes blissafter years of numband loneliness,what missivesmight one penfrom the peaksof ardor?

I have been with you all day:

over unsweet tea and barbecue,and the ditsy, DIY,southern sweetheart waitresswho (bless her heart) plunksour drinks down out of reachand has to be asked twice (at least!)for everything; she sparksus into laughter (for risenfrom our first lovewhat could spoil our mood?)and easy camaraderiewith our fellow underserved,french-fry-denied patrons;

down the aisles of the gardencenter at Lowe's, hefting bagsof potting soil and mulch,choosing your first hand tools,flower food and flowers-pansiesand Dianthus (the ones called pinks)to plant along with yellow trumpetdaffodils (surplus from my garden)in graduated terra cotta-coloredplastic pots flanking your front door;

to Target for tomorrow's party at work,a baby shower for a soon-to-begrandma for which you seeno need but nevertheless buya twenty-dollar gift, a tin of nuts,wrapping paper and bow;and finally hometo plant our flowers,talk to family on the phone(my mom, your sister),a couple of beers, a dinner of quiche,desultory baseball, then early to bed.

I have been with you all day,but how I've missed you,skin on skin, drowning in a kiss.

Company

Not the kind whose comingunleashes flurriesof furious cleaning

nor the kind that blithelyowns the mill, the mine,the store, that trades in souls

but the easy kind of sisters, onesettled on the top-down toilet,the other ensconced in the tub,taking turns, keeping each othercompany while taking a bath

or the man who stops by the fenceto pass the time of daywith a woman wrist deepin the dirt of...